


Vanish

by Sciamachy_ism



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Anorexia, Depression, Drama, Dysfunctional Family, Feels, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, In which Loki is is seriously losing it, Loki has 5000 issues, Oh god so many feels, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Torture, Post-Avengers (2012), Self-Harm, Thor has 5000 issues, WARNING POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING, attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-16 10:43:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3485252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sciamachy_ism/pseuds/Sciamachy_ism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the Avengers, Loki is declared "mentally incompetent" by the Allfather and labeled "an embarrassment to Asgard" from everyone else. Thor may find him redeemable but convincing himself that he is worth saving was always the challenging part, and he may be more lost than anyone knows. WARNING: potentially triggering. Mentions of self-harm and anorexia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

 

 

"Oh it's you. Hello, Sif. Look at what I just-"

"Thor. He's gone."

"What-"

"He's run off again... And Thor. I think this is it. I think this time it's for good."

 

 

*****

 

 

A letter addressed to no one.

_Don't look for me._ _I tried but I just couldn't do_ _Just believe that wherever I am that I am doing well. You can tell them all that I died in some unfortunate event or that I never existed at all- just do not come after me._

_I'm sorry. Do not look for me._ _Please do not look for me._

_Be happy. I'm sorry for all the pain I have caused. I'm sorry about Mother._ _  
_

_-Loki_

 

 

_*****_

 

 

He tried. He tried so damn hard. How could he tell them that without receiving a smothering, patronizing, "I know how you feel" speech?

(Thor)

Or a scoff?

(Sif)

Or gazes that would just look away, self-embarrassed?

(Fandral)

(Hogun)

(Volstagg)

Or the one gaze that could shatter his resolve beyond repair and make Loki want to hide before he saw the indifferent depth in  _his_ eye, replaced by the view of his back?

(Father)

(Odin)

Odin would turn away. He knew it. He has witnessed it happen before.

( _ **No, Loki**_ )

So he  _ran_. Left behind a letter because he couldn't leave them all a better  _him_.

A prince who could stand to walk on his own through the halls and handle weapons in the Training Room without twenty different pairs of eyes turning to watch him, waiting for him to sink a blade deep into his wrists.

A prince who could sit in the Dining Room and laugh and eat and boast stories of hunting adventures and grand battles instead of twenty different pairs of eyes to turn and stare at his near-empty plate and compel him with their steel eyes to fill the hollows between his protruding ribs.

A prince who could walk into a room recieving  _hellos_ instead of glares, people bowing their heads repectively instead of scanning the scars down the length of his too-thin arms. A prince who could fill the room with greetings and laughs instead of painful silences and unspoken accusations.

A little brother who could give his older brother more than the sympathetic glances of strangers. A friend who could remember to smile in all the right places instead of filling the gaps in conversation like it was an obligation.

(what a pretty lie that would be)

(But you have told it before, haven't you?)

 

 

*****

 

 

_You have destroyed this family_ , Odin said when he saw the angry slashes on his arms.

He did not shout. Merely stated it as if it were as factual and insignificant as the weather.

 

 

*****

 

 

_Did you hear about the prince?_ They all whisper.  _Is it true what they say?_

_Is it true he's insane?_

 

 

*****

 

 

He runs through miles of biting forest. The branches snatch at his hair and clothes, trying to chain him here. They leave angry red marks to remind him of the ones that came before.

His scars tingle.

He slipped off the slimy feel of Heimdall's forever watching gaze with a tricky spell. So many months of making sure that the youngest prince of Asgard did not stray from the encaging walls of Asgard's palace. Making sure that Loki did not wander off too far away from Thor or Sif, ascertaining that every blade was accounted for at the end of the day, that every bath Loki took was exactly ten minutes, like clockwork.

(not enough time to bleed out)

(not enough time to drown oneself either)

(at least without being caught)

As if the ever present stares from Asgard's townspeople weren't enough, he had to deal with subjecting Heimdall to a demotation from Guardian of the Worlds to babysitter for a certain mentally unstable prince.

 

 

_*****_

 

 

_There is a phrase that mortals use for disorders such as these, Allfather_ , Eir said. _They call it manic depression. That, along with him not eating and his self-destructive behavior..._

_Well... it's not a question of_ if _, but_  when.

Odin blinked.  _Why has Asgard never dealt with cases such as these before?_

Eir sighed.  _Mortals and... those of lesser advanced realms are commonly afflicted by ailments such as these. Ailments of the mind that Asgard has long since progressed past._

The room was silent.

(nobody spoke aloud what everyone was thinking)

 

 

*****

 

 

His breaths come hard in the winter chill. He convinced himself before he ran that the darkness of the night would feel like a cloak, safely draped across his shoulders to hide him from view, lest  _they_ come running after him. Now he feels horribly constricted- as if the darkness is choking him. The starlight shines down bright and illuminates his pale skin.

(that too was always different, wasn't it?)

His pallor shines like a beacon in the middle of tangled branches, signaling to all of the suspiciously shaped shadows his exact location. He imagines them coming alive to rip out his throat.

He feels like a little boy again, when he was lost for hours and hours on end until night came along with all its shadowy friends with beady eyes and scissory claws. The shadows came alive and paralyzed him with terror until they finally heard his screaming and found him.

He almost calls for Thor like he did then too, before he chokes it down.

(remember yourself, Laufeyson.)

 

_*****_

 

 

_You are to stay with him at all times_ , Odin said.

_He will sleep in your chambers. You will wait ten minutes outside the door every night in the Bathing Rooms. You will be his shadow_ , Odin told Thor.

You  _will accompany him every time that Thor is not. Escort him to the Dining Hall. To the Training Room. You understand how imperative it is to have your eyes on Loki at all times when you are in these places_ , Odin told Sif.

_Keep an eye on him. Make certain he does not set foot outside of the palace_ , Odin told Heimdall.

_Loki must not be left alone_ , Odin told them all.

He listened outside of the door. Peered through the crack. He saw the glance Thor and Sif exchanged. The look of astonished grief he mistook for exasperation.

 

 

*****

 

 

( _You will be his shadow._ )

(Well, that's changing things up a bit, isn't it?)

 

 

*****

 

 

Where can he go?

Not Jotunheim, Loki knows. Definitely not there. He would rather feel the demanding agony of the flames of Muspelheim before he feels the chill of his true birth land again.

(and his arm turned blue at the touch of the monster and he could not help but think  _Oh..._ )

( _It all makes sense now._ )

Fleetingly, he pictures the image of another forest, softer and full of light, where just below a cliff's edge of a foilage lies a small town glittering with artificial light.

 

 

_*****_

 

 

_What_ is  _that, Papa?_ Loki breathed.

Odin's eye looked down and twinkled.  _Light_ , he said simply.  _Mortals create their light through tiny spurts of electricity, much like lightning._

_Like Mjolnir_! Thor shouted, grinning.

Odin chuckled.  _Yes, like Mjolnir. Though quite not the same as you think, my son._

Loki could not take his eyes off them. The sparkling bulbs would resemble stars, if they weren't so close to the ground.

 

 

*****

 

 

Midgard, he breathes. Midgard.

If he wasn't so breathless and terrified, he would laugh at the  _sheer irony_ of it all. The idea is so ridiculously ludicrous, so laughably,  _stupidly_ unexpected- to go to the very place that a mere two years ago he tried to subjugate- that got him the label of  _mentally incompetent_ in the first place-and seek refuge.

It is so  _unlikely_ that immediately- Loki knows it is the perfect place to go.

He stumbles for a second on a protruding stump of a tree and stops- cursing and holding his foot- when he hears them.

The branches snap a mere distance away. Loki freezes- straining to hear past the distracting sounds of insects and rushing water nearby.

Then- they start calling his name.

"Loki! Loki! LOKI!"

They are searching for him. Obviously, his pleas in his letter to be left alone have been ignored. He honestly shouldn't feel surprised over this and he hates himself for being so.

"LOKI!"

He runs faster but quieter. His too-thin limbs ache with the strain and already, even in the dark, he can see the black spots cover the edge of his vision. He cannot risk blacking out _now_ \- not when they lurk so close behind. But if he doesn't run faster, they will catch him. There is not much of a choice so he wills himself to stay upright and forces his limbs to move on, one step after the other.

"LOKI!"

Does he imagine it or do some call halfheartedly, like they want him to stay lost so they will never again have to deal with the consequences of him being found?

"LOKI!"

Inexplicably, names emerge from the voices. A face with rugged features and a warm smile. A woman's scowling face and watchful eyes.

Thor and Sif call the loudest.

(where's Odin?)

(was it not he who found you when you were just a child at play in the night?)

He imagines his starved legs snapping like kindling. He imagines his rib cage caving in on itself from his heaving gasps of air. He imagines the pathetically small heap of bloody remains his body would make. Even the rabid wolves would turn away in disgust.

He imagines his skeleton body falling to the leaves that litter the ground like crumpled paper drawings a child would make. His arms pump hard at his sides as he runs and gasps for air and he imagines how  _easy_ it would be to let them fall, to let his body just  _give in_ to the shadows and sleep forever.

But the thought of his ghost weight, the dangerously thin limbs splayed out in every direction stops him. The thought of Odin's embarrassed face as he would look upon his too-thin too-small too-frail too-weak despicably  _weak_ runt of a son makes him keep going. The thought of Thor's bulky, strong arms cradling his starved corpse makes him push on because he cannot be held in those arms that would look bigger than his entire body. He cannot bear to think of Odin poking his scarred, emaciated arms and saying  _He was not enough. There was not enough of him._

He was never enough of anything, not even himself. He was never enough.

 

 

_*****_

 

 

_What reason do I have to try?_ Loki asked in a half state of consciousness, numbed and rendered incapacitated from the medication and spells Eir was running through his blood.

Sif turned from her bedside vigil. Her presence confused him more than anything. Honor and duty bound her to watch over him by the Allfather's orders and make certain her prince did not do anything absurdly stupid, like launch himself off Bifrost. It did not bind her to stay by his bedside as he mumbled and cried out incoherently, as if she was loyally accompanying an old friend instead of admitting they were anything other than enemies who loathed and betrayed each other one too many times.

Sif said nothing but a soothing " _shh_ " that was unfitting with the hostile scorn Loki associated with her in his mind. And then after a moment- Sif placed her hand over Loki's chest, where his heart beat falteringly.

It did not feel like a gesture of constraint or of comfort- but rather like an answer to his question.

_What reason do I have to try?_

He wanted to scoff and shove her hand off. Instead he passed out. Such sentiments are not reserved for monsters.

 

 

*****

 

 

He knows where it is. He knows where to go.

If anyone had been paying any attention to him (the kind that mattered) they would have noticed something was off.

Not big noticeable things- but small, insignificant tidbits that made all the difference.

 

 

_*****_

 

 

_He is getting better_ , Thor told Odin.

Look at how he fills his plates all on his own. Look at how he can bathe himself. Look at how straight he sits, how unflinching he is when he passes by metal.

Did they really underestimate the God of Lies once more? Was their arrogance so great and pompous that they thought him docile and compliant as he used to be?

Yet Loki played along. Ate all of the food on his plate. Did not hide blades beneath his mattress. Hovered close to Sif when they were at each others' throats and didn't try to run. Nodded his head to Thor's constant reassurances and his idiotic good-natured advice.

Sit. Roll over. Good boy.

In return, Thor and Sif let loose the chain around his neck ever so slightly. It was all that he needed to slip out of the collar.

 

 

*****

 

 

Loki can hear the pounding roar of water ahead. The sound of the waterfall masks his footsteps slightly so he allows himself to move a little quicker. He can taste blood in his mouth from the strain. His lungs ache.

One step. Another. Keep going. Do not stop.

He is almost there.

Ahead, he knows where it will be. The little sliver on the side of a cliff that leads to a cave. Inside that cave will not be hollow space- but a passage.

A secret pathway. A thread between the worlds. A very particular thread that connects to Midgard.

He spies the cliff ahead, the sudden end of thick forest that leads to a clearing overlooking the majestic view of Asgard's towering mountains in the distance, the land between forest and mountain churning with water below.

Rain starts to fall- harsh and unforgivably cold. Loki glances back- he wishes Thor would stop despairing.

( _Be happy_ , he wrote.)

(Like you once were when I was the shadow)

 

 

*****

 

 

Loki's small hand pointed to an ancient drawing on the page.

_And that connects to..._ He furrowed his little eyebrows.  _Midgard?_

Frigga threw her head back and laughed, the sound more musical than the tinkling patter of rain on the window. She squeezed him tighter than the book between them.

_My child_ , she whispered, eyes twinkling.  _How clever you are._

 

 

*****

 

 

She is gone now.

 

 

*****

 

"LOKI!" Thor roars.

Above, lightning flashes. The crashing boom that follows shakes the ground between them and vibrates Loki's bones, his feet cradling the edge of the cliff and nearly losing his balance. He can hear the anguish of his brother's cries behind him but cannot tear his eyes from the churning water five hundred feet below.

Time stops.

The loutish footfalls of the search party finally stop. The wind eerily quiets down so Loki can hear in exquisite perfect detail the very moment Thor's heart shatters into a million pieces.

They freeze behind him- frightened that one move closer with compel Loki to jump.

He knows what this must look like- him standing on the edge of a precipice, arms held out slightly like he's tempted to launch himself off the cliff during that insane split second when nothing seems as appealing as jumping.

He never wanted this. He did not want Thor to come after him until it was too late. Did not want to hear Thor say with all the reason in the world that he was loved, that people waited for him, that he needed to come home. Just come home.

But don't they understand that he's not giving up?

(just giving in?)

He breathes deeply once and then turns away from the raging black water beneath. His eyes look through freezing droplets of rain and wind and dark air between them to lock eyes with his brother for reasons he cannot name.

(I can't do this anymore, Brother I cannot say it but  _I cannot do this anymore-_ )

Ahead is freedom, sweet and clear. Behind is pain and humiliation. But behind is also where Thor is.

But what if he didn't want to be like Thor anymore?

He breathes deeply. Looks ahead to the churning water below and wonders when his plan to leave to Midgard morphed into a plan of jumping to his death.

"Loki, no-" Thor begins.

And there it is. Loki smiles. He has heard those words before. He takes it as his cue.

" **NO**!" Thor shouts and the crack of thunder rips apart the air as Loki falls forward.

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay- I got sidetracked with life and it kind of snowballed from there. 
> 
> Ok. So. In the beginning of this chapter, I had no idea how Norse timelines compare to human ones, so for plot purposes- I used the normal age range that one would use for a human child. Sorry if that bothers anyone but seriously- I have no clue.
> 
> Would a ten year old in Midgard be the same as a 100 year old on Asgard or something? Again. No clue. If you would like, I would appreciate forever and ever if anyone could clarify if there's someone out there who knows.
> 
> But for now- I'm using relative human ages (at least throughout childhood years, I think once they reach their coming-of-age their aging slows) to make sense for everyone involved.

_He has tasted the lure of suicide before._

_Countless times, multiple times._

_It became as routine as his morning tea. He became insensitized to it, thoughts during breakfast of driving the butter knife home skimming through his head without the clanging of his heart. His mother and father would sit, sipping their tea, unaware. Thor would continue his boisterous talk and jaunting laughter while Loki would roll his eyes and mock him in all of the right places- everyone around him unaware of how the blood in his veins sang for the silver of the knife a mere three inches away and how his fingers_ itched _._

_He was thirteen years old._

 

 

_*****_

 

 

Falling tastes much like the bitterness of lies. Once spilled over the edge of a mouth or a precipice, there is no return. There is always the swooping feeling in his stomach, the feel of the sudden drop, the immediate realization that it cannot be taken back.

His body free falls over the edge of the cliff and only now does he feel fear. He falls screamless- soundless as the sky all around him is not- thunder crashes with deafening  _booms_ and lightning flashes white with such an intensity that Loki swears he can hear the light  _wailing_.

He falls for a second- or eternity.

(Time does not exist in the Void)

_But this isn't the Void_ , he reminds himself feverishly.

(the fall two years ago should have been the last)

_But this will be the last,_ he promises himself faintly.

(the words  _ **no, Loki**_ should have been the last too)

But there were so many words since then, all biting and all corrosive on his skin. So many words since then he should not have heard, words that he should have been too far gone to care about.

He did not cheat Death two years ago- Death cheated him.

 

 

*****

 

 

Thor watches, the air suspended, dreamlike, because-  _this cannot be happening_.

His little brother is not really leaning over the edge of the cliff, arms extended and face turned upwards, holding a peace that Thor has never seen in two years. This Loki cannot be real- not this man whose pallor is brighter than the life behind his eyes.

He was getting better. He was supposed to be getting better.

( _Are you ever_ not  _going to fall for that?_ )

Grief cascades down Thor's face in the form of rainwater. Beside him, Sif inhales sharply- her body tensed and poised to rush forward, her arms already forming the shape it would take to grab Loki, to yank him away from the brink of death.

Thor isn't sure if the fall would kill him but the ridges of his bones are clearly visible in the moonlight. He looks starved. He looks fragile. He looks-  _breakable_. Surely, the fall would kill him. But then again, Thor was always taken by surprise, bordering on  _shock_ \- how much pain his little brother could take. How much he could withstand.

The calculation takes a split second- from Thor's eyes skirting from his brother to the depths below the cliffs, the churning water underneath looking more sinister than any enemy Thor has ever faced. Loki could survive the fall. He could die from the fall.

It is not a chance he is willing to take.

A crash of thunder shakes the foundation of all around him- the guards, the ground, Sif, Thor himself- all tensed and waiting for something to happen, something to shatter the heavy glass that freezes them all in place.

"Loki, no-" Thor begins.

It happens.

Loki leans too far forward, his ghost weight falling over in a wisp of air. He falls too quiet- a whisper  _hush_ goodbye. His body disappears and Thor realizes, dimly- that Loki's saccharine look back was the last time he would see Loki's eyes.

Someone shouts the word that Thor's entire being is screaming with- and then he realizes it is his own voice.

(no)

 

 

*****

 

 

Two years ago when Loki let go, Thor swore he could count the eight seconds it took for Loki to disappear. He could reach deep into the recess of his memory and place Loki where he was still reachable- his ivory fingers still grasping on five inches away. Thor could count the strands of Loki's hair and describe the shining color his tears streaked down his face. He could add up all of the seconds, break down all of the words spoken and looks given. He could paint the clearest picture and freeze Loki there forever- despairing and lost- but still reachable. Salvageable.

Thor convinced himself he would have let go. He would have jumped after him, if Odin's hand did not close tightly over his ankle- daring him to try the same. Thor convinced himself that he tried the hardest he could to catch him, that it was Odin who refused to let him.

It was easier than telling himself the truth.

 

 

*****

 

 

This time, Thor does not hesitate. He lunges himself over the edge after his brother.

 

 

*****

 

 

Coldness swallows Loki whole. His porcelain skin absorbs the water and fills his throat, his lungs, his stomach. He cringes- his body has not felt full for years.

The impact must have shattered his bones but he cannot feel anything but the coldness of the water. The burn of his un-oxygenated lungs diminishes into an almost indecipherable pain. He begins to go numb from the bottom up- the cold is eating away at him until all that will be left is a waterlogged corpse. A bag of skin and bones inflated with nothing but water.

Through the slivers of his eyelashes, he looks up at the fading silver of the moonlight. It shines over the rippling surface that is getting farther and farther away as he sinks down. The water itself is a dark, inky blue. The roaring of the sky is silenced- finally. The quiet is soothing, even peaceful.

Then suddenly- it ripples. Shards of moving silver disturb the tranquil surface, a dark figure taking shape that looms ever closer.

The cold spreads to his waist- then his chest. His fingers twitch feebly in the water before they go completely still. He cannot even manage to feel afraid when the figure blocks out the moonlight and everything goes from inky blue to velvet black.

 

 

*****

 

 

Thor cradles his little brother's body to his chest, silently begging him to absorb some of his warmth. He sprints towards the lights of the palace, every step longing for Mjolnir- wishing he could fly and be quicker, over the length of foliage that drags him ever slower, his steps clumsy and sluggish in the middle of thick woods. But he could not have been able to hold Mjolnir and Loki at the same time. Not with him like this. Not when he is so fragile Thor cannot feel him breathe.

Sif pants ahead of him, her blade slashing down weeds and nettles before they have a chance of getting in Thor's way. She flings down her blade with a furious vengeance, her knuckles white as she grips her sword, power evident in her every limb. The only functioning part of Thor's brain not focused on keeping Loki alive can only stare after her in awe.

Loki does not stir. There is no twitch, not even a  _whisper_ of a breath in him.

If it were not for the feeble pulse Thor detected as soon as he pulled Loki out of the black waters, he would have believed he cradled a corpse. He wills himself to push his limbs forward faster. The Aesir guards sprinting around him exchange glances and telltale shakes of the head that Thor completely ignores- at least until he can get Loki to the Healing Room. He can pummel them all to the ground once Loki is safe.

They finally clear the forest and their footsteps echo on stone path now. Ahead is the palace, blessedly near.

Thor sees the Warriors Three a mere one hundred yards away. Fandral's head spins around at the sound of the procession and jolts forward, a large steed in tow. Volstagg's head snaps up from where he was dozing off, seated by the stone wall. Hogun alone looks completely unsurprised by the crowd of Aesir guards and the state of the two princes of Asgard- drenched to the skin and covered with nettle marks- and merely looks grimly at the dripping body Thor holds in his arms.

"How is he?" Fandral asks quickly- yanking the large stallion forward by the reins.

"Alive," is all Thor can manage. He hauls himself and Loki on top of the saddle- awkwardly cradling his still form- and propels the steed forward and takes off in the direction of the castle.

He cares not if anyone else follows. The stallion races ahead towards the looming castle doors, already opening.

"Hold on, Loki," he mumbles as the horse rides straight past the steel doors and into the halls with echoing steps, ignoring the alarmed looks and shouts from passerby. "Hold on, hold on, hold on..." he whispers again and again.

Loki's sharp cheekbones cast shadows over his white face. The biting winter air left frozen slivers of ice in his dark hair, his eyelashes, his eyebrows. Ice crusts over his clothes and falls to the ground like snowflakes with every jolt the horse's steps make.

Thor wonders if he holds a ghost and he tastes a fear deep in the back of his throat. He swallows down the urge to retch and instead urges the horse on faster. They gallop down long hallways, deafening echos of hooves sounding as loud as the hammering of Thor's heart.

"Hold on, Loki- Oh Norns,  _please_ , hold on..."

The doors to the Healing Room lie open. Already a crowd of Healers await their arrival- Eir standing tall and formidable in her focus at the head of the group. Several of the younger apprentices jump back in alarm at the enormous horse speeding towards them, exclaiming and leaping away as Thor pulls the steed abruptly to a halt a foot away in front of them. Only a young healer, standing by Eir's right side, remains still and alert.

Eir rushes forward and looks in dismay at the limp figure in Thor's arms. The young healer moves immediately to pull Loki from Thor's arms. Despite his rush to get here, Thor cannot help but feel a desperation in separating from Loki. He cannot shake the feeling that this will be the last time he will see him- the last time he will hold him.

Eir moves towards Loki in a daze. "Oh Norns..," she whispers.

In the torch lit hall, Thor sees Loki clearly for the first time in the entire night, unmasked with the darkness of the night outside.

Without his layers and layers of leather- Loki lies bare, a simple tunic and thin layer of pants halfway ripped to shreds from running through dense forest.

Thor's head reels back to the day before. No- the week before. Had Loki been evading Thor's glances, skirting away from all suspicion by a simple thin smile and calm countenance? Because he cannot remember seeing his brother looking like-  _this_.

Had he even been looking at all?

His skin is so pale- almost bluish lips and eyelids- that Thor believes he must be bloodless. His right arm and left leg are awkwardly bent in an unnatural angle. His skin is lined with scratches and marks from clawing branches. Every ridge of his bones, long shadows cast by the deep crevices, are so sharply pronounced that Thor expects them to cut through his skin. Loki is a skeleton draped with a blanket whiter than the snow littering the ground outside.

But it is not these details that make Thor's head spin, or make Eir's skin turn a delicate shade of green, or make the young healer's eyes fill with trembling tears.

It is the scars.

Lines track the soft inside of Loki's arms and hipbones. The barely exposed white skin of his hip sends a gasp of shock through Eir's mouth and a wave of revulsion through Thor- not only because of how hollow and sharp the crevice is- but because the scars there are so deep that blood forms a shallow pool where the bone and skin should be filled with flesh. Crisscrossing lines of garnet. Deep white marks on skin from years before that will never fade away. The most freshest ones that Loki carved on himself are dripping steadily, either opened once more with the rush of the chaos this night has wrought or never fully healed at all.

The crowd of bodies around Loki take a collective pause- then flurry into action. Eir is already inside the Healing Room, readying tonics and rapidly muttering incantations to stem the flow of blood leaking from his little brother. The two wiry healers carrying Loki flitter after her, their weightless burden in tow.

Thor glimpses a skeletal hand in the rush of bodies before Loki is lost through the doors.

(was it not I who swore to protect you?)

He stands frozen on the spot. Wondering if he was too late. Praying to the Norns this will not be the last time he sees Loki alive.

(Protector of the Nine Realms indeed.)

The young healer is also making her way inside the doors when she pauses- hesitating at the door. She turns to Thor with wide blue eyes and manages a tense smile, even though her eyes and Thor's are still brimming with the horror of what they just saw written in the skin of the younger prince.

"We will take care of him, my liege." Her voice is calm, steady- practiced and refined against the pressure of dealing with broken and bloodied bodies as only an experienced healer can be. Thor can only dimly hope she fares well against broken and bloody minds.

(oh brother, how did you get so bloodied and broken?)

_Do you not know_? asks a voice that echoes in the hollows of his head, sounding too much like Loki.  _Do you_ really _not know?_

(a shadow)

_Do not pretend not to know._

"Thank you," Thor manages. The healer nods, then hurries through the door- thoughts visibly switching from one prince to another in a heartbeat.

(living in the shade of your  _greatness_ )

Thor stands dripping black water in the middle of the corridor, feeling strangely alone and utterly useless.

 

 

*****

 

 

When he dreams, he dreams of monsters.

They stand around him with the metal claws and their sharp glass teeth.

They bite at his insides and send tiny bugs inside of his raw and bloodied mouth- they crawl between his teeth and fester all the way down until he feels their weight settling in his stomach.

The monsters are cramming fluid down his throat.

No.  _NO_. He doesn't want to eat- he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't-

His head is submerged in water and everything sounds muffled. He can hear their chatter- feel their commotion. They know his name and he cannot understand  _how_. He cannot understand  _why_ \- until he remembers the shadows in the woods and realizes they must have caught him. He must have lost the battle against the dark. They must have seen his arms and fingered out the outline of his name in the scars. Yes. Yes- it is the only plausible explanation.

They speak in their poison soft manner- speaking lies, terrible  _lies_.

_Loki- you must lie still. Stop fighting us._

No- no- he doesn't want to.

_Lie still! You will hurt yourself further if you do not- calm- down-_

He moans aloud and they rush around him, making such terrible noise.

_We want to help you, Loki. Let us help you._

The most obscene lie. The most unforgivable. He is a monster and they are monsters and they have come to claim their own with their sharp demon teeth and they will consume him if he swallows their lies.

_We only want to help. Why won't you let us help?_

He will consume himself before he will let them fill him up with their lies anymore.

_Loki. Let us help you._

He rears his head back and lets out a pitiful moan he meant to shape into words.  _No. Leave me be. Go away. Leave me alone, why can't you just leave me_ **alone** _...?_

He thinks he feels snow in his hair. His shredded clothes are soaked with icy water. Can they see how he does not shiver? He is beyond cold, freezing, yet he refuses to quake with it.

(monster)

The cold has never been alien to him. He has always felt it. Always shivered with it.

(jotun)

He is a monster. They can all see it now, embedded deep in the white of his skin that should be blue.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the fall.

" _Do you truly not understand the gravity of your crimes?"_

_Odin's voice rang out throughout the bias. Loki could not contain the hilarity bubbling up in his mouth at Odin's rage, at his shame. He laughed freely, openly,_ mocking _._

Good _, he thought viciously._ Let him feel what he has subjected me to all of my life. Let him feel the shame of what the House of Odin has hidden under its nose for all these years.

_The people watching on jeered at the fallen prince, throwing insult after insult towards the one who just a year ago, they called King._

_The trial was meant to be a sentencing, a mere formality even though his fate had long been decided. But-_

" _Wait," a voice rang across the bias. And Loki turned towards Thor's stupidly stubborn voice, already halfway through a roll of the eyes. Before freezing in shock at what his eyes found._

" _Thor," the Allfather began, a warning that shivered through the walls._

_Thor stepped forward, unflinching and head high. "Allfather, I bring a witness to shed light on the true circumstances of the prisoner's crimes."_

_Loki could not breathe. The witness stepped forward into the light._

 

*****

 

Thor strides through the doors of the Throne Room, his arms moving aggressively to push the heavy oak out of the way. His steps echo loudly and he dimly remembers the way this hall used to feel so warm and welcoming as the citizens of Asgard would gather for whatever the occasion.

Fleetingly, a memory comes to mind. When he swaggered through these same doors a lifetime ago. The smell of metal and sunlight. A vivid red cloak. The burning bright pride he felt at playing the soon-to-be king. There was a mother there. And a brother who was whole, too.

( _Oh, now_ that's _funny._ )

( _Fool._ )

( _Do not pretend you did not_ see, the voice reminds him again.)

He blinks hard to clear his head. Now, this hall just feels tarnished.

All of its glorious décor is vast and alone- save for one person. And Thor cannot help but feel a sudden, scorching rage at the way  _he_  stands at the bias of the throne chair so calmly.

As if Thor didn't still ice clinging on his soaked tunic. As if Loki wasn't lying somewhere reachable, a mere ten floors away from their father.

Odin makes no move to acknowledge the presence of his eldest son. He stands, his back slightly arched over, facing away from Thor with one withered hand clutching the armrest of the chair.

Thor swallows the tight ball in his throat and waits for Odin to turn to him, or more importantly- to ask after his youngest.

It does not come. Thor cannot help to feel impatient, bordering on desperation. He feels the urge to scream and yell at Odin in fury over his futileness, his stillness when Thor himself cannot seem to shake the urge to run and  _run_  until he can find Loki again. His brother. With the bright eyes and the smile that came so easily. Not the ghost who has taken his place ten floors away.

Odin does not move from his silent inspection of the view- a high dome of a window with cascading moonlight across the ceiling- a view that gives his father a clear view of the repaired Bifrost a distance away.

Odin does not ask after Loki- so Thor begins for him.

"Father." He waits for Odin to take the second chance, to look at Thor and ask at the very least what happened to his youngest son if he cannot find the will to see for himself.

(Papa, Loki is hurt and I am scared and I don't know what to do.

It's Loki. Please.

Papa,  _please_ …)

Nothing. Thor glares at Odin's back and cannot explain the slight panic that has built up in his chest because Odin  _still_  will not look at him.

Does he not understand that Loki is hurt? Loki is  _hurt-_ Loki is in  _pain,_  and how does that not send a wildfire through his rib cage compelling him with the force of a thousand fires to  _go_?

" _Father_ ," Thor says again. This time, with a steely edge, an unspoken warning to not try his patience any longer.

Odin seems to shake out of a reverie- his back straightening halfheartedly as he turns to Thor with an air of surprise. His face remains impassive, his one eye looking directly in Thor's water-blues, yet not clearly  _seeing_. As if the weathered King of Asgard gazes at his oldest through a curtain. It frustrates Thor to no end- but the familiar guilt presses down on him soon enough. Because this is his  _father_ \- and while Thor can barely conceal his frustration at Odin in his futileness and stillness- he knows without a doubt that Odin loves Loki with his entire heart and soul, no matter how many poisonous words were spoken between them. No matter how many times Loki would bare his teeth and throw all of his love back in Odin's face.

"My son," Odin says quietly but clearly. Thor cannot pretend Odin's choice of words are anything other than a greeting to  _him_ \- not a question over  _Loki_.

Thor wastes no time in asking. "Will you not go to him?"

He knows Odin can sense the simmering edge to his words that would send anyone else cowering in reverence of his danger- crackling behind his eyes like a barely concealed thunderstorm. But the Allfather merely looks at Thor, his gaze going cloudy and impassive as ever and saying with all of the calmness and composure in the Nine Realms-

"No."

Thor takes a second to breathe- unclench his fists. "And why not?" His voice fails at staying steady.

Odin gives no answer- merely raises his chin a fraction higher to remind Thor that he is not to lose respect with the ruler of Asgard, father or not.

"My reasons are not yours to demand- nor are they yours to question."

Thor swallows the lump of rage in his throat, and forces his next words to come out calm. "Loki is ailing- and I fear it is worse than we thought it to be."

This is it, Thor thinks numbly. This is where Odin is supposed to look at Thor with all of the accusation in the world, where he is supposed to strike him down in his incompetency. Where Odin is supposed to wrench Mjolnir from his unworthy grasp- because who gave Odin the weekly reports on Loki's condition? Who fed the lie that Loki was getting better? Who allowed himself to be blinded by hope that his brother was coming back instead of seeing things as they really were? Who was supposed to be making sure that Loki did not disappear out of his sight in the first place?

No such accusation comes. "I do not underestimate the gravity of the situation," says Odin, a trace of detachment in his voice. "I will not go to him simply because there is no more I can do for him."

A strange sort of desperation compels Thor to move closer, an almost fear that does not allow him to mentally process exactly what Odin could have meant by that.

"So…What do you plan to do?"

Odin exhales sharply before turning to Thor. "What course of action would you take in this… situation?"

Thor barely suppresses the roar of frustration building in his chest- because he knows his father well enough to understand that this is not a father asking for his eldest's advice in how to better care for his youngest- but rather the Allfather testing the heir to the throne of Asgard to see if he is really capable of handling grave circumstances such as these- because what business does Thor have in ruling a realm as grand as Asgard if he cannot handle a simple situation of troublesome family nuisances?

Thor barely manages to keep his voice steady as he answers with clarity, "The same as any brother would do. I would not rest until I knew my brother was safe and well within my ability to care for."

Odin seems to sigh at Thor's unspoken accusation, which only causes Thor's impatience to grow. Time is running scarce. The Healers should know by now the full prognosis of Loki's condition and he is stuck here attempting to convince his father that it is worth the effort to hear it.

"A true ruler must understand the effects his actions could bring on the entirety of a Realm. A mere slip in judgment could begin a ripple in the entire pond of Asgard, could hinder her growth and stability. You must learn, Thor, to pick your battles wisely to avoid setting off entire ripples that could lead your collective body of waters to turmoil."

Thor's disbelief gives way to confusion. "I hardly understand how helping my brother could potentially harm Asgard. He is my brother," he says somewhat lamely, because he does not want to believe what Odin might be saying is what he really means to say.

Odin blinks slowly. "You endangered your own life to save your brother's," he says bluntly. "Did you not think the implications your actions could have transpired?"

(Can this be the same father who clawed his way after his lost youngest son when Loki was little more than a boy, lost deep within the woods for hours on end and everyone was getting ready to call off the search because _, It is growing darker, Allfather… Soon the wolves will be out in the shadows and it will be too dark to fend them off…)_

"Loki was in dan-"

"Your actions could have led this house to ruin. Already people doubt the capabilities of the House of Odin to rule. A haywire, maniac prince," says Odin, his voice losing none of the detached calm, "That is what the people will compare your rule to and your every action as King of Asgard will be called into question because of it. Already there is doubt on where your true loyalties lie."

"My loyalty is to my family," Thor says, furious. "And when I am king-" (I'll hunt the monsters down and slay them all.) "-my loyalty will not waver in this. What kind of ruler can I be if I care not for my family?"

"A king must place his kingdom above all things. Yes, Thor-" he says calmly as Thor opens his mouth to protest, "even family. And that is not something you have exemplified to the people of Asgard. You put aside your duties as crown prince-"

"It was through your order that I protect my brother and I would have done so with or without your-"

"He is no longer your burden to bear, Thor."

Disbelief. Pure, numbing disbelief renders him mute.

_(Allfather, it has grown too dangerous to continue… He is most likely already…._ And Odin silenced them with a look so utterly terrifying and silent that Thor could only shiver in fear of just how  _strong_  his father was...)

"Once Eir has seen to him… it is well within my capabilities to see him imprisoned," says Odin, now talking to himself more than Thor.

"The lower dungeons. Seidr-restricting. Constant watch," Odin adds quietly as the guilt churns inside Thor's gut, to add to the reddish haze that has obscured his vision.

"Under what charges?" His voice is shaking uncontrollably now.

Odin regards his son with a detached gaze that manages to make Thor angrier as well as cautious. It would not be wise to lash out at the Allfather at this moment.

"It is well within my grasp to hold captive whomsoever I desire. As ruler of the Nine Realms," his voice growing dangerously, "I am certainly able to judge insolence in any member of this realm."

"Insolence," Thor trails off, the fury subsiding momentarily for disbelief.

Odin does not give him a chance to continue. Something fragile he was holding together in his voice seems to snap. "Loki violated my  _direct_  order," his voice accenting every syllable as if admitting an unspeakable crime, "to refrain from his-  _actions_. He  _trespassed_  my authority to remain under your constant care," he spits at Thor as he winces in shame, "and in doing so, endangered the lives of my crown prince and his comraderies through his arrogance, recklessness and  **stupidity** -"

His bellowing rant chokes off with a sudden widening of his eye as he clutches his chest over his heart with a withered hand and shudders violently. As he begins to slouch sideways, Thor moves quickly to help his father support himself- but stops as Odin shoots him a fearsome glare that commands him to freeze on the spot, chest heaving and mind unwilling to process exactly what Odin has just said.

Father and son pause for a moment, chests heaving and raging eyes dangerously tiptoeing the line between accord and outright hostility.

"Then  _help_  him," Thor says beseechingly as Odin begins to straighten himself, his cloudy eye finding the distant view of the window again. "Do not chain him like a beast on a collar."

(When Odin finally emerged from the woods cradling his boy, Loki was shivering with big, fat tears streaming down his face. Thor could see three long, red gashes down the length of one skinny arm and torn tunic. He remembered the nauseating guilt he felt for weeks after, that only loosened its pincer-like hold when Loki was able to move his arm again weeks later. Nobody remembered to blame Thor, of course.)

"Will you really see your son imprisoned?" Thor nearly expects Odin to deny it- to rebuke his claim over Loki as his father- but it does not come.

Odin grasps Gungnir tight in his fist and turns to Thor, the creases seeming impossibly deeper on his face, all of the laughter lines pulling in the wrong direction.  _Old_ , he realizes dimly.  _My father is old_.

"Loki will not be allowed out of sight once more," Odin says, ignoring the way Thor winces once again. "When he wakes, see to it that alternative arrangements be made for the time being. A concrete course of action will be decided once he is…" his voice trails off. "And send for the Lady Sif. I would have words with her."

Thor wants to argue against every order- Loki would be best in his care, Sif has no blame in this (it is all his, all  _his_ ), Loki needs help, Loki needs love, Loki needs  _you_. But Odin is not just Thor's father but also his king- and not even Thor is angry or foolish enough to disobey a direct order.

 

*****

 

Everyone was so ready to give up on Loki. The number only grew in size as the years went. But Thor never did- and never would. And Thor realizes that is why he is scared. Because he did not think that Odin could become a part of that number too. He did not think his father truly capable of letting Loki g-

_(Father and son returned from the shattered Bifrost. It would remain unguarded for now- with the Gatekeeper injured and the state of it- and what did it matter anyway, when the bridge itself cannot pass or bring back?_

_Thor's eyes stung painfully. He ambled without thinking after his father, his mind still working on piecing itself back together. He was afraid of when it would finally catch up._

**You. You did** _, is the only comprehensible thought that Thor found himself capable of thinking at his father's back._ You did not catch him- you let him go. You let my brother fall. **You- you did.** _)_

It fills him with a fear- not for himself, but for Loki. How deeply will it cut him to hear that his father no longer feels the need to rescue him? How much more could Loki unravel until there will remain nothing left to salvage?

Thor fears that this last act of turning away will break what precious little remains of his brother.

_(Thor could not see his father's face- the gray grief-stricken color of it, the bleached-out blue of his eye as he dimly concealed his shock at the pain he left behind and the pain sure to come. He and his son approached the castle doors, to his queen that stood waiting for her husband and two sons, and instead, received only heartbreak._

_Odin tried to see through the dim and only kept coming back to the same child face- hearing that single word "_ **no** _," attached to a name he cannot bring himself to utter again._

_He could not stop the hate directed to the very core of himself because he did not think of the right words to say.)_

 

*****

 

"Idiotic, fumbling  _arse_  of a fool," Sif seethes. She grabs at the flagon of wine Volstagg was holding moments ago and launches it across the room where it hits against the wall with a  _crash_.

"How can you possibly forget that he cannot take in anything as wine?" Sif hisses between her teeth, cutting off the beginnings of a protest from Volstagg's mouth. "Wine, mead, ale-" she counts on her fingers, "anything remotely inhibiting to the senses is  _out_."

Sif paces furiously across the length of the room, grabbing small commonplace objects- trinkets, sketchbooks, pens- and tosses them furiously with the rest of the pile on the bed.

It has been hours since the Lady Sif returned from Odin's throne room, deeply shamed and  _furious_. Her mood has not improved.

Volstagg stands dumbfounded at the entrance of the Loki's room, holding the bushels of food he was tasked to bring up from the kitchens. He looks to the other three for an explanation but all he receives is Fandral's shake of the head and Hogun's grim look of understanding. Thor says nothing. He cannot seem to look anybody in the face yet he moves forward to take the cases of breads and cheeses and meats from Volstagg's leaden arms with a silent nod of thanks.

The packages are heavy- samples of the greatest delicacies Asgard has to offer. Thor deposits the cases gently on the bed. He knows without a doubt that Loki will not eat a morsel if he can help it.

The greatest shield maiden in all of Asgard moves through all of Loki's possessions as if she is waging war on the room. The men fall silent as Sif wrenches book after book off the shelves and flings them behind her towards the bed without looking- either unaware or pointedly ignoring the sounds of books hitting their marks behind her. Fandral grunts in pain as a book finds its target in the center of his face and Hogun halfway smiles, but it is gone as soon as it came. The missing member of the group hangs between them in the air like something burning.

Thor gently opens the closet doors. He fingers the soft-colored tunics hanging limp and lifeless, as if their wearer has not bothered to put them on for some time. There is an air of neglect about them. Thor carefully selects a number loose, comfortable tunics, knowing that Loki prefers the looser fittings so his thinness would not be as readily noticeable. Thor remembers the scars (flashing red behind his eyelids) and flinches. He places the short-sleeved tunics back in their place.

Behind him, the jarring sound of a metallic clatter informs him that Sif found another blade- strategically hidden, no doubt. It falls in the corner with the other three she found. Thor holds his breath as he senses Sif grow steadily angrier and angrier. The trio senses it too and they move cautiously around the room, carefully organizing and gathering various objects that Loki could take comfort in when he's in his new quarters. They all pointedly ignore the corner.

Thor does his best to not allow Sif's fury to permeate his own. He feels it building deep inside his core and knows it is only a matter of time before it explodes out. For now, he mechanically folds tunic after tunic, breathing slowly in and out so he doesn't sink a fist deep into the walls of Loki's chambers.

It has been a close second, Thor's emphatic refusal to chain Loki inside a prison cell- and later his emphatic refusal to keep him chained to a hospital bed. Convincing Eir was no less difficult than convincing the Allfather. The old Healer was all for chaining Loki to a bed and keeping him in a seidr-induced coma to force-feed him "back into shape." The image of Loki being made a mind-numb puppet compelled Thor to argue. Carefully suppressed fury and calm words eventually convinced the Head Healer to a compromise- Loki would be moved from his private chambers and into a separate room joined with the Healing Chambers where the more critical patients were usually housed, under close monitoring and care of the Healers- at least until a permanent solution could be arranged.

After feeling as if he had battled a liege of bilgesnipe, Thor hunted down Sif and the Warriors Three to ask for their aid in clearing out Loki's chambers in the hopes of making everything blow over smoother when Loki was moved to his new quarters. He knew before starting that it wouldn't work. Yet the trio was more than eager to help (while Sif just seemed angry) and Thor cannot help but feel grateful as they work methodically beside him as they sift through all of Loki's possessions, trying not to feel like impostors. His mind is screaming for something to occupy it and though the hour is late and his body aches, he knows rest will not find him tonight. He can feel the fatigue of everyone in the room but his friends loyally gather clothes, paintings, sketchbooks- anything and everything that Loki could hold any attachment to. He knows they all feel as hopeless as he does.

Thor tries not to think about how Loki will react to the news of moving to the care of the Healers full time and instead, he tries to focus on not seeing red. But the clatter of another blade- this one from between the pages of a book- is the last that Sif can take.

"How," she exclaims suddenly, as the other four flinch, " _how_? How can he be so- so-"

Sif blinks away furious tears as Fandral closes his gaping mouth and hesitantly glances to Thor. He pretends not to notice but he cannot stop himself from balling his fingers tightly, fisting a green sleeve between his hands.

"I do not understand," Sif spits out, "how I could not have seen this coming." She breathes hard and fast, the tips of her cheekbones flushed in rage or grief or both, Thor does not know.

"Sif," Fandral says quietly, gently closing his hand around her arm, "none of us saw this coming. None of us had any idea how bad…" He shoots another worried glace at Thor, who pointedly looks at nothing of significance.

"Yes," Hogun says quietly. "We cannot dwell on what has passed."

"Our efforts were at our greatest," Volstagg said, looking deeply unhappy. "We helped him as best we could."

Did they? Thor thinks, suddenly furious. Did they really?

And not just since Loki's return from Midgard. Years before, ages before, when they all found amusement in the younger prince's odd customs. When they good-naturedly and foolishly called him strange or odd or different or laughed at the way he did the things he did- was that not fault enough?

"It changes  _nothing_ ," Sif snaps. She only seems to be getting angrier at the same time the Warriors Three run short of things to say. "He was placed under our care. We let this happen."

Her scorching gaze finds Thor and he cannot look away. It crackles in air, electric and foreboding, the accusation he suddenly realizes Sif holds in her eyes.

He swallows hard once. Twice. "Well?" He asks.

Sif's eyes go hesitant, then hard. "Will you go to the Allfather and ask him to reconsider?"

Thor fists his hands again. "I told you, I have. I've done all that I can for him, Sif. The Allfather will not budge."

"Try harder," Sif beseeches him. "I fear that  _this_ ," she says, gesturing at the mess around them, "will do much more damage than good."

"And you think I do not know that?" Thor's voice rises in volume and the others visibly retreat, but Sif glares back unflinchingly. The unspoken fault lies heavy between them, the nagging, pressing guilt that points the finger at the two tasked with watching over the once-again fallen prince.

"You did not see him, Sif. You did not see how far he has pushed himself to the brink of his own death and now I fear I cannot pull him back," he says and he can hear his voice waver but he is too angry to care.

"I was there, was I not? We saw him lunge over the edge, we were both there-"

Thor is either unwilling or unable to tell her how thick the scars are.

"Sif-" Fandral begins, but she cuts across him.

"I do not understand, Thor. Neither you nor Loki. We have to do  _something_."

"What else do you want me to do? Because I have tried every  _damn_  thing," says Thor, dimly realizing he is shouting now, "but I am at a loss to know what else there remains for me to tell him which he has not already heard! I have tried and tried to show him he is loved, he is safe, but he jumped, Sif! He jumped and I do not know how to  _fix_  him-"

"I do not know either," Sif nearly shouts, and the anguish in her face makes Thor look away, "but we have to do it better this time. We failed and while I am furious at what he has done- to you, to himself- we cannot let it happen again."

"Thor-" Volstagg tries, but is silenced with a single scorching look.

"I know that. I know what has to be done but  _he does not want to live_ , Sif." His voice cracks and he feels Fandral look away embarrassed but he simply  _does not care_. "I thought he was getting better but he was not. He did not. And I can see no other way to keep him  _safe_  other than this. I do not know how to make him want to  _live_ -"

"But we have to  _try_ -"

"For Loki?" Thor snaps, feeling surprisingly savage. "Or to reclaim your honor, seeing as how you failed to protect your prince?"

She recoils sharply. "You have fault in this as much as I, Thor! If not greater," she retorts, her voice ugly.

And there it is. He feels a savage satisfaction in the accusation, the guilt exploding in his gut that no one else has yet placed on him. Sif is seething, either feeling much too furious at him, or herself, or Loki, to take anything back, but he sees her eyes brim with tears as she realizes what she just said. And he cannot hold it against her for blaming him. He goaded her on to saying it. He  _wanted_  her to say it. And it is true. All of it.

Their audience collectively freezes, waiting for the storm that will strike Sif where she stands.

Instead, he turns around and walks out. The others stay dead silent behind him. It is not like Thor to walk away from a fight.

 

*****

 

When he passes the Healing Room, he crouches on the floor and sinks down to sit against the wall. He realizes he is still holding one of Loki's tunics. It is painfully familiar, one of the many he used to wear in simpler times. Before now. Before Frigga. Before he fell (let go) from Bifrost.

And along with the guilt of his little brother lying on a hospital bed, the weight of his angry words at Sif add to the heaviness in his heart. He will apologize, when he sees her again. When he can focus on more than one thing at a time. He drops his face in his hands, breathing raggedly and deeply. He is only making things  _worse_.

He brings Loki's tunic to his face and inhales deeply. He cannot say if the achingly familiar scent is actually there or if his mind is so grief-stricken that he imagines it. He cares not either way. He holds the tunic over his face until Loki's scent is all that lingers in his mind.

 

*****

 

(You give up this poisonous dream.)

He wakes, the echoing remnants of a dream evaporating away before he has a chance to recall it.

(You come  _home._ )

The thrumming of the blood through his veins is too weak but he can feel every shivery beat. His paper-thin skin is near transparent- the rivers of veins underneath his skin are too perceptible. He hates it. He hates it but- (he cannot stop)

Loki wakes up to the pain. He wheezes- twists his body over the sheets and clutches his side. His organs are convulsing, the acids corroding the lining of everything inside of him and he feels tears begin to build in his eyes as he chokes back bile. What did they give him? Don't they know that food will only fill his stomach until it bursts out filth?

(His brain his heart his bones his blood  _sings-_  for food for dirt for anything to fill this searing hollowness)

This hunger is the worst kind of hunger. He has long since progressed beyond the aching discomfort of denying himself sustenance for a mere handful of days. The searing pain of starvation has escalated into a numbness. No longer just hungry. He has progressed instead into this animalistic starvation so intense, he can feel his entire body going into shock.

This is the result of  _months_ of discipline, of trickery, of dedication- of  _work_. He should feel proud of the result but instead, he only feels sick.

He can feel it deep inside his bones. His racing heart will not slow down. The tremors in his fingers have moved beyond his ability to control for some time now- even before his blaze through the woods. (Did that really happen or did he imagine it?) There is not a single cut along his skin that has ever fully healed. There is a freezing chill he cannot shake, the kind that lives inside his marrow so deeply it hurts. His body is practically screaming in its primal need to  _live_ \- he can feel it in the desperate clanging of his heart.

His body- despite the emphatic refusal of  _himself_ \- desperately wants to survive. He has never felt more betrayed by anything else in his life.

He remembers water. He remembers cold. He remembers- (Thor)

_(shut up)_

There is little else to recall. He finds it hard to stay tethered to anything these days.

He cannot focus. His surroundings are a haze- everything muddled except the ever constant  _fear_. Of what- he doesn't really know. He cannot describe it. Nobody ever thought to explain it to him.

Sometimes he thinks that the unseen monster lives underneath his skin. He's been carving it out of him, piece by piece, a little more every day. One day they will see it for themselves. He will exorcise himself and banish the creature from his skin and maybe then, he could  _finally_  go to sleep. Thor can take care whatever demon is left behind. Didn't he say once that he would hunt these monsters down and slay them all?

But he will not let Thor beat him to himself.

 

*****

 

Thor had drifted off sometime in the night and he does not notice until the Healer is standing directly in front of him.

"My lord? Prince Thor?"

He jumps slightly and opens his eyes. It is the young Healer from before, the kind one.

He opens his mouth to ask but finds he cannot speak, panic suddenly choking him.

"He has stabilized, my liege," she says, cutting across his stuttering. "He drifted in and out of consciousness and panicked on one occasion, but he is still now. He needs to rest more than anything," she says soothingly as some of the tension visibly relaxes from Thor's shoulders.

"Can I see him?" He asks quickly, the ability to speak returning as the numbing relief washes over him.

Something hidden flashes behind the Healer's eyes. "I'm afraid that might not be the best idea as the moment. He needs to rest now," she says, not unkindly. "Perhaps when he is more… aware."

Thor swallows the once again climbing panic. "Is there something wrong?"

The Healer sighs briefly. "No more than to be expected, Lord Thor. He is simply not as aware as he should be. He does not recognize anyone at the moment," she adds after a second of hesitation.

_No more than to be expected._ Thor wonders how much "wrong" they expected before Loki's jump.

"I thank you," he says and he means it. The Healer gives a slight smile of acceptance. A thought occurs to him and he holds out the tunic for her to take.

"Please give this to him and tell him… tell him that his brother wishes he returns to us soon," he finishes haltingly.

The Healer smiles kindly, albeit a little sadly, and bows her head. "I will be sure to tell him," she says as she takes the outstretched tunic.

She bows her head again in farewell and turns to the Healing Room.

He ignores the sudden pang of hurt at the way she closes the door behind her. On the other side where Loki is and where he cannot be.

 

*****

 

"…return to him and your family soon." A pause. "They miss you wholeheartedly."

He can taste the lie before he's even fully awake. He tries to open his eyes but finds they are laden with some heavy weight and he cannot lift them. He tries to sharpen his train of thought but there is a barrier there that he cannot break down. He recognizes the sharp smell of seidr in the air, the gold haze behind his eyelids and he knows what they are doing to him.

How long will they keep imprisoning him this way?

Something gently lifts his head off his pillow and he would lash out if he could make use of his limbs. When his head is placed back down, he feels a cushion there. Something soft, like cloth, brushes against his cheek and stays there.

It smells like oak and rainwater and sunlight and something else that is warm and painfully familiar and  _safe_. The barely functioning part of his brain screams at him to move away, to turn away from the smell before it only hurts him later for some reason he knows was urgent but cannot recall now. He struggles to remember why it is not a good idea to let it affect him so but the scent is so comforting and so  _warm_  that he slowly turns his head towards the softness and buries his face in it and inhales the scent once. Twice. He holds it in his lungs for as long as he can, suddenly terrified that breathing in too much too fast will make it disappear faster.

He is too tired to remember why he thought this was a dangerous thing to do. He inhales deeply until the familiar scent is all that lingers in his mind. He stops fighting the pull of sleep and allows himself to drift away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely comments and kudos. Every time I see them I smile so hard it hurts. Please review and let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is semi-awake and everyone is hurting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who do not know, in Guardians of the Galaxy, Sanctuary was referred to as the Domain of Thanos.
> 
> Please enjoy:)

 

_A subtle and ironic twist of a word and which once meant:_

a place of refuge and safety

_became a single word:_

nightmare

(Sanctuary)

_It did not matter the fact that he had a family, it did not matter that somewhere he had a brother and somewhere he had a father and somewhere he had a mother or that they were all pretend, it did not matter that there was a throne and it was not his, it did not matter that Odin lied and Frigga pretended and Thor let him go, it did not matter that there was a Nine Realms and thousands would die and billions could die, and it did not matter that there could somewhere exist a place without torture and pain, it did not matter that flesh was not meant to melt and blood not meant to spill, and it did not matter that he was alive and it did not matter that he could die and it did not matter that he could not remember his name._

_The fear turned to pain turned to agony turned to nightmare turned to oblivion. It did not matter that He would come back for him when he failed._

(you think you know pain?)

_And all Loki thought was that if every living being in the universe could live what he lived and see what he saw and feel what he felt, there would never again be any hope._

 

 

 

*****

 

 

 

Loki wakes up and it is so dark in the Healing Room that he believes he cannot open his eyes at all. He panics with the idea of blindness for one long moment, cold sweat plastering his hair to the back of his neck, heart clanging like a bell to remind him he is still alive. He's still alive. He's alive.

He falls back into the pillow, chest heaving, and slowly the room comes into dim focus. There should be a Healer somewhere but Loki hears nothing. He can barely keep his eyes open, much less sit up on his own. Eventually, his breathing calms. His hands stop shaking. Small details come into focus.

His arms feel heavier than they should. His brain is slow to process but eventually it dawns on him that he is heavily bandaged. Not just his arms but his legs too. His throat feels hoarse, like he's been screaming for hours. He's so cold he cannot even shiver, and just feels his body grow steadily colder. The blankets on top of him feel crushing and do nothing to make him feel warm. It is either nearing dawn outside or long into the night.

He cannot shake off the feeling that someone is watching him.

He wants to sit up but his body won't let him. His eyes droop closed and snap open again. Because there is a disconnect between what his mind wants his body to do and his body carrying out the order, along with the acrid taste in his mouth, he believes they are running medicinal herb remedies through his bloodstream or seidr or otherwise-

Seidr. His seidr. His eyes snap open and gaze at the black space above him in semi-shocked terror. Panic rises.

Is that why he feels so wrong? He quickly attempts to call up a simple light conjuring spell, a simple ball of light in front of him that even rudimentary seidr-practicing children can accomplish and finds… nothing. He reaches for the deep cesspool that is so ingrained in his very cellular makeup. Nothing. He tries to find the inner cloak of warmth that is his seidr ( _everything, it's all that he has_ ) Nothing. It's gone. He's gone. They've bound him.

He lets out a cry like a wounded animal. And struggles with bindings that aren't visible but which constrict so heavily around something so profoundly  _his_  that it shoots blinding shocks of pain up and down his spine when the bindings do not lift. They do not even budge. He lets out a cry somewhere between a shout and a sob.

"Shhh, Loki."

The voice comes to his left and he jumps, then turns towards the voice in the dim light. He can see absolutely nothing.

He tries to speak but all that comes out is a weak whimper. Either from the shock of being an inane, seidrless carcass or the medicine they are running through him is stronger than he had originally anticipated. The silhouette of the voice moves closer to his bed and Loki cannot say a word to make it go away.

A pale, withered hand looms over his face and it is all he can see clearly in the dim.

(not unfamiliar)

The forefinger and thumb rest on the bridge of Loki's slim nose and gives a gentle, squeezing pressure.

"Sleep now, my boy."

Immediately, warmth extends from the contact to wrap around his brain, coaxing sleepiness and draping it over his aching head like a blanket, moving to spread all over his body with the feeling of sinking into a warm bath. Loki manages a shaky exhale before succumbing to oblivion.

 

 

*****

 

 

Asgard is underwater.

Empty, not one single soul underneath the waves. The light of the stars are somewhere above because he can see the light streaking through, sending ribbons weaving through the blue hues.

He knows he's dreaming as soon as he opens his eyes. He looks at the smooth skin in the inside of his arms and cannot find the raised skin. He sees the curtain of black haloing his head and cannot feel his fingers running though the strands. The water feels like air and he cannot feel the weight of it. He walks as if he's not underwater at all, all loose limbs and fluidity. He breathes easily, no strain in his lungs.

There is the golden throne. There is beacon of light shining from the Observatory. The edge of the Bifrost cuts across the water like a spear. A constellation of stars begins to appear, just under the waves- stars under the sea.

(he thinks they could spell out  _Frigga_ )

He finds himself inside the Observatory without thinking about it.

The usual golden air is absent, replaced with an inky blue that is unnerving. The usual magnificent walls of the Observatory are cracked, overtaken by reeds. On the Bifrost- there is a crack just outside the entrance on the muted glass. Who put it there?

The edge.

In place of a void there is a water-filled chasm. The black water goes down into the plummet like a gaping hole. Instead of falling he could drown. Instead of landing he could be crushed by the weight of the water. He knows swimming up isn't an option. Once over the bridge, there is nowhere to go but down.

The abyss looms below him and can everyone feel its pull? Or just him?

_I dare you_ , he thinks.  _Come and get me._

 

 

*****

 

 

"Thor."

A nudge. "Thor."

Violent, persistent shaking.

" _Thor_."

"Nmmph?"

Thor raises his head, blinking gritty eyes to form a hazy picture of a grim Sif looking down at him. He wakes up quickly, straightening his awkward position on the floor. He winces at the crink in his neck, stretches out stiff limbs and jumps up to stand, tries to look dignified despite being found in such an embarrassing position.

They stare across each other for one heavy, silent moment. Sif breaks it first.

"Thor. What are you doing sleeping on the floor?"

Thor blinks gritty eyes, awkwardly clears his throat. "Waiting for Eir. She should be out any moment now."

Sif nods, purses her lips. Thor shuffles from foot to foot. In the silence they can hear the bustle and movement inside the Healing Room.

"Look-" Thor says at the same time Sif says "I-"

They break off- and smile awkwardly, despite themselves. There is a unfamiliar tenseness between them that Thor deeply hates. Until-

"It was my fault Loki was out there in the first place," Sif blurts out.

The quiet that comes after fills Thor's head like cotton and he finds himself thinking of the strangest things. Trees. Ice. Dark emerald tunics. Inky water. The sound of a blade going through the air before finding its mark.

Sif searches every inch of his face, looks for anger and for accusation that is not there.

"I had argued with him- before. I was just- I was just  _so angry_ , Thor. It's no excuse for failing my duties to you, to him, but- It's no excuse. I found him after he ran off after that incident in the Dining Hall and he was in his room and he was holding a book and pacing and I asked him what he was doing and why he was acting the way he was acting and he just- wouldn't answer me. I wouldn't let it go and he got so frustrated he threw the book at the wall and there was a dagger hidden inside, even though I had just searched everything and cleaned  _everything_  out and I just got so,  _so_   _angry_."

(books and daggers, Mjolnir, Uncle Vili, baggy clothes and angry voices)

"And I started shouting and he did too and then we were just standing there, screaming horrible things at each other and I told him I was tired of him, of dealing with him, of dealing with it all and I needed a break from him. And I stormed out and I did not even look back, I did not even look behind me to see his face and see if he was alright and-  _for Norn's sake_ , of course he wasn't. How could he be? I did not even look back and the next thing I know I come back and there's no sign of him and instead there's this letter that says he's gone and he's not coming back and- oh gods, how could I have left him  _alone_ -"

"Sif, stop. Stop," Thor says, cutting through her rambling. He feels a strange urge to laugh, even though nothing about this is the slightest bit funny. "My friend…none of this is your fault."

Sif says nothing, just stares at the ground with shining, blazing eyes.

"If anything, I am to blame," says Thor. "I was wrong to misplace your motives, to question your honor, and duty and loyalty. I am sorry, Sif. You are a true friend, for you to shoulder this burden with me when it is not yours to carry."

The two of them breathe deeply, infinitely harder to do so than it was seconds ago.

"Do you forgive me?"

Sif gives him a watery smile. "Thor, there is nothing to forgive."

He smiles and the unfamiliar tension between them evaporates. "And you, Sif, truly. I am glad," he laughs, "that I am not in your bad graces."

Sif cracks a smile. "You should be glad." Then her smile wanes. "But I am still sorry. It is no excuse."

"Sif, I believe my brother would have left regardless of words spoken between you or not. We had no idea… no idea, how bad things were. Are. It's worse than we imagined. Do not blame yourself for not seeing it- I did not either. It is hardly your fault for his suffering, Sif."

(red lines on flesh, metal, skin over bones, the way a person looks upward before they take the fall)

"But if I had only-"

"Sif, enough. Do you honestly believe Loki wouldn't have found a way to leave if he really wanted to leave? He could talk down the Head Councilmen from a trade embargo hardly after his eighth Naming Day."

Sif smiles at that, which is what he wanted. He reaches out to grasp her hardy shoulder, a gesture of such familiarity which she returns. Then her eyes become grim.

"So what do we do from here? If he wants to leave, he'll find a way for sure. So how can we make him want to stay?"

Thor's eyes go blurry and he sighs, feeling older than Odin, older than the universe, older than time. "Oh Sif. That is the problem."

 

 

 

*****

 

 

 

Sif talks him into seeing his father before Eir returns with the full prognosis. It's still late, the middle of the night and Thor sits awake across from his father, who after walking in a half hour late to Thor's summons from who-knows-where, sits still and quiet on his chair as Thor thumbs through the pile of old scrolls and yellow, cracked documents on the table. Some of the ink is severely faded, but eventually Thor finds the one he is looking for.

"Here it is," Thor says. He holds up the paper, the ink looking darker and visible than the other papers, much more recent.

The paper that states the full ownership of care and legal responsibility of Loki Odinson belongs to the High King of Asgard, Odin Allfather. His elegant, looped signature stains the bottom of the page.

The small, inked letters spell it out quite clearly.  _Mentally incompetent and requiring direct care, pending further evaluation…._ and the words continued with the usual rubbish that shouldn't mean anything to anybody else but Loki's family. But the paper was required, a final humiliation for Loki and a mere formality for the courts, necessary to officially keep Loki out of one prison and into another. Stated quite clearly. Loki isn't to be trusted with himself.

Odin's voice cuts his thoughts off mid-fume. "Where are the papers proclaiming his birthright?"

Thor freezes, confused. "His… birthright?"

"Yes," Odin says, distracted. "I have a need for them. I believe…" His voice trails off.

"The adoption papers?" Thor asks, still confused. They're in here somewhere, the rights and name of Loki Odinson, accompanied by a list of his birthright, including the Odinson name, a few material objects, properties, and the throne. Identical to Thor's. He read the paper once, nearly two years ago, after a very different and very much the same, fall.

(Both Mother and Father sat Thor down, explained calmly and clearly to one son exactly what they failed to explain for the other and it was too late to take any of it back ever again)

(vicious hailstorms fell and it stormed for weeks)

"We can find them another time if you wish, Father." Thor frowns, wondering if Odin is even hearing him. " _This_  is the one we need, right now."

Odin frowns. "To relinquish full care ownership to…"

"Eir," Thor reminds him. "Head Healer. Temporarily. Do you remember?"

"Yes, Thor," Odin snaps. Thor fists one hand behind the desk where Odin cannot see.  _Breathe, Odinson, breathe_ …

"Eir. Right," Thor says. "And perhaps later… to Midgard."

Odin deflates suddenly, shoulders hunching and he looks towards the window.

"It is an idea," Thor says, weakly. "There is still time to come to an absolute decision."

"Midgard," Odin repeats, blandly.

"During my time there, I witnessed their Healers. The Midgardians call them doctors. And they are refined in their practice with invisible wounds, mental blocks. My good friend, Dr. Erik Selvig…. He is being helped. He improves a little more every day. Nothing ails him physically, but their Healers that practice illnesses of the mind have helped him greatly. They are experts in their care."

( _please do not ask, please do not ask…._ )

"Midgard," Odin repeats.

"It is an idea," Thor repeats.

His father says nothing else on the matter, merely continues to look out the window. He looks surprised, a little dazed. His mind far afield.

"I would like to see those papers," Odin says again, distractedly. "Of his birthright."

"Yes, Father. Later, perhaps."

Odin continues to stare out the window.

 

 

 

*****

 

 

He wakes up with the full intention of being in an as terrible mood as possible, but honestly,  _what the fuck do they expect?_

"Loki Odinson, you are under my care for the time being." Eir looks down on him sternly.

" _Do not call me that_ ," he hisses.

"That is your name, Loki."

He laughs, hysterically and bitterly and harsh.

"But  _surely_ , you must know by now. No- I can't imagine how you wouldn't. Tell me, did Odin bring me back in my monstrous visage all those years ago, when I was a pathetic wailing babe?"

The Head Healer is obviously in no mood for hysterics. Even when he was a child, she remained utterly unfazed in the face of her most frequent, most irritable patient. His attempts of sneaking out of the Hall by hiding underneath a food cart, dramatically pretending to die the morning after his nightly stays. All met with no more than a stern glance and impressive silent patience and it is no different now, being in the other's company. She's as relentless as Loki is stubborn. They're practically related at this point.

He completely disregards the fact that the lids of her eyes are slightly swollen. He fumes.  _How dare she?_  It only makes him hate her more.

"Lie still," is all she says.

Her papery creased fingers move to project Loki's lying form above him, the Soul Forge lifting away to create a long, skinny body outlined in gold. He hopes she doesn't see him flinch.

(Fool. Imbecile.)

His heart races and pounds and tries to punch a hole through his rib cage. He tenses and waits for some hidden alarm to ring and blare to the entirety of Asgard that the enemy is here, deep in the belly of the beast. She  _knows_. He knows it, she knows it, then why bother playing Healer instead of executioner?

Anger is easier than despair.

"The lot of you are cowards," he says, and laughs. "Did you examine me to make certain no Jotun pestilence would find its way into Asgard's golden halls? Did you cringe at my skin? All these years you have treated me- how could you  _not_?" Loki fists at the sheet. Strange. What is this tunic doing here when it should be in the closet in his chambers? He hasn't even worn this one in years.

Eir clears her throat, fiddling with the programmed Soul Forge, but other than that, ignores Loki's sour mood impressively.

"You are part of the lie." he goads. "And they call  _me_  liar." He smirks as hard as he can even though his neck hurts and his head hurts and his voice hurts and everything hurts.

"Loki," Eir says, finally turning her nose down to look at him. Her voice is soft, quiet- and he doesn't like it at all. "I must say, you have got it all wrong."

Breathing hurts. Everything screams to contradict her, but what can he say? Nobody ever thought to explain it to him.

"You must have known- you along with Odin and- and  _Frigga-_ "

"Of course I knew, Loki." She says, resuming her graceful movements in the air. "Does that change anything? All these years I have treated you, and have never seen no less than the clever, respectable boy that your parents raised you to be. A fine prince of Asgard" she says, a shadow of a smile on her face as she continues her fiddling. "Although you toed the line at times." There is a twinkle in her eye and he thinks it might be a tear.

After one long moment, she whispers, "Do not call your mother that." He almost doesn't hear her.

(You're not.)

(How fast does someone die? Time is relative. When Loki was a boy he read volumes and volumes of dusty books off shelves higher than twenty Odins stacked on top of each other (he measured length in his father because he thought Father was the tallest person he can remember looking up to and even then there must have been length to spare, there were books, so many books) and he would climb without second thought of how they could topple over any second and reach for the ones he wasn't allowed to read yet because he was too young, they all said he was too young but he didn't care, there was so much he didn't know, so much they all said he wasn't allowed to know ( _not yet_ , they all said, but  _Time is relative_ , that was how he managed to convince himself of anything and everything, Time is relative, Time is relative, time is different from where you're standing and where he was standing was in Asgard where he was easily a hundred years older than any Midgardian child and where he was standing was as the smartest boy his age and in his classes with private tutors and even smarter than Thor and the usual rules didn't apply to him and he read that one particular volume, the one with the cracked pages and the golden runes inscribed on the front that spelled out  _the Calligraphy, Art, Weaponry, and Ways of the Dark Elves prior to the Age of Bor_ , and Loki read and read with wide eyes and a horror-filled child-heart, fascination at that one phrase that burned into his memory and burned to hurt hundreds of years later when he lied on the floor of a cell after tearing holes and tearing scars into the walls and skin, the books and their words that he hated because they had hurt them and lay on the floor looking at nothing and everything, at his wrecked prison cell Odin locked him in for being the mentally incompetent bastard of an enemy child he was until he was finally deemed "stable" but until then he lied on the floor utterly gutted out from inside out but all he remembered were the words-  _blades of the Dark Elves were embedded with curses in the form of coated venom, which when cut through the skin of an enemy would cause a slow,_   _prolonged, painful death, long surpassing the death rate of any other Aesir weapon_. The words hurt him, he never should have read that book, never should have-)

"-the ultimate truth of your deception- The fact that you hold the enemy deep in the heart of the kingdom and they call  _me_  liar?! That I am not- not- you are all liars, you and the _wretched_  lot of them,  **all of you** -"

Eir slaps Loki's face so hard his head recoils to smack the bar of the bad behind him. He freezes at the sting, mouth open and rage suspended, only capable of feeling surprised of the strength behind the old Healer's swing. Eir merely grasps his bony wrist, all clinical stern patience and measures his pulse. She leans down to look into his eyes, measuring the size of his dilated pupils- concern creasing her brow. He is too stunned to do anything other than breathe.

He blacked out. Not good. He cannot remember the past five minutes, or exactly what he said. Something manic, no doubt. He fights the urge to blur away from the present again. Panic nearly takes over but he's too frozen to let it take hold or do anything than just sit and think. Months. It's been months since that's happened.

"That's better," Eir says calmly, releasing his wrist that drops like dead weight and one side of her lip quirking at Loki's still stunned expression. "Sigyn-" she calls across the room, "some water if you please."

A young healer across the room jumps at being addressed. Loki snaps out of his trance to glare at her, panic rising. How long has she been standing there?

The healer quickly returns from an adjacent room with a pitcher of water placed along a tray laden with delicate, light foods. He loathes her immediately.

He pauses to gather some of his dignity. "I am not feeling particularly hungry," he informs Eir smoothly (his stomach twists) "and I would like to rest now," (lies lies he wants the food he wants all of it he wants it he wants it) "I do not require your aid." (it hurts)

Eir's expression does not shift in the slightest. "I have already informed you. The Allfather has placed you under my care for the time being. If you have any issue with the arrangement, I suggest you discuss it directly with your father."

Loki keeps his face carefully blank, holding back the disgust. So. A kingly decree for the invalid and even that does not warrant a visit?

(something inside twinges like a memory but it gets stuck, like everything else)

No. He doesn't need nor desire a visit. Pathetic. How much more shades of pathetic must he go through before he runs all out?

The smell of food (oh gods) wafts across his face (please no) and it smells disgusting (it hurts hurts hurts).

But he is strong. He is so strong he manages to gaze at the meager offerings laden on the tray enough to turn his nose up at it. The young healer watches him with wary eyes.

Loki lifts an eyebrow in Eir's general direction.

He makes to move off the bed- and finds himself stuck. Bindings materialize the minute he lifts his limbs outside of the golden sheen and close around his thighs, his torso, his ankles. A new low. He kicks his legs and the bindings tighten- not enough to cut, but enough to feel the blood flow constraining. He growls deeply in his throat, anger overriding panic.

"Loki-"

He throws his arms out with a frustrated yell and knocks the laden tray out of the healer's hands.  _Ouch_. A particularly deep cut on the inside of his elbow reopens and he feels the bandage grow wet as bindings immediately appear around his arms. The healer cries out as soup plasters her shift and Loki feels a savage pleasure in knowing it was hot.

"Get the feeding tube," Eir snaps. "And get help."

The young healer rushes to the entrance holding her face, calls out to other healers just outside the door.

A long string of profanities makes it out of Loki's mouth, poisonous and vicious, spitting them out in one steady stream at the Head Healer, who looks wary as she weaves a complex paralyzing remedy with golden tinged seidr in the air in front of him. He says a particularly nasty phrase that makes the corner of Eir's mouth twitch down as she grabs the feeding tube from the young healer, drying soup pasted on her front and one side of her face beginning to welt. She holds up a strap he immediately nicknames  _the_   _gag_. It has a metal guard meant to pry open his mouth and a strap that goes around the head to keep it in place. He stops his bashing momentarily to bear his teeth at her while Eir shoots him a thoroughly unhappy look. Bad Loki.

_I'll be damned if they get that anywhere near my mouth_. He struggles futilely as the straps tighten around his thighs as new straps appear out of nowhere to close around his wrists. Two male healers appear on either side of him, arms up like they're approaching a rabid creature. Wretched, the lot of them. He chokes out another yell. Powerless. He is powerless.

Eir twists the paralyzing seidr in the air and infuses it into the already glowing golden shell bubbling around him. The Soul Forge hums at the same time Loki begins to feel it- the slow, chilling creep of being rendered immobile. His feet stop kicking and he watches in semi-awe as he loses feeling in his toes, then his feet, his legs, and up up up. It makes his brain foggy, his panicked heart stutter.

Poison comes to his aid, as it always has.

"You want to kill me Eir, you always have and now you've just been waiting and now you got your chance- I'm not going to wake up and you- you," He's babbling now, like an imbecile. The paralyzing drought has soaked into his brain. His sharp tongue, his only weapon, his last remaining defense reduced to nothing- "What- what more will you take, what more before it's enough, before you brutes are finally satisfied-and take- take everything-"

Eir looks down, calmer now, slightly disturbed. "Keep still now, Loki."

He can't. Can't. Not when they're getting closer with that crude instrument of torture, of pain-

(don't think don't remember)

They insert the metal bit and it's so cold it hurts his teeth. The metal adjusts itself to fit snugly against his teeth, the sharp bit pressing into his gums. He has a fleeting vision of his old horse, Mirar (who died years ago, when a young warrior-in-training shot a poorly aimed arrow in the Training Grounds when Loki and Thor were riding) Mirar and the metal bite of the reins pulling and pulling and pulling to force him where to go and where to fun and how fast. He coughs at the taste of cold metal- they only force it wider, pulling his jaw until his mouth is horribly gaping. He can already feel a pool of saliva forming and he chokes, unable to swallow.

"I need you to relax, Loki."

(don't think don't remember)

The tube goes in next. They force it deep into the back of his throat and he feels like he might gag but doesn't. They have done this before, countless times.  _He is critical_ , they said.  _We cannot help someone who refuses to feed himself_. The Healers press in.  _You can get better on your own or we will force you_.

Eventually his gag reflex was gone. It's been only two seasons since he was released from the Healers' care. That year was not a pleasant memory. In all that time he didn't feed himself once.

The tube presses against the back of his throat and his eyes water automatically. A tear falls in a warm trail down his temple into his ear. Someone wipes it with a warm cloth. He wants to shake his head away but very quickly he finds his head is very, very heavy and his thoughts are slow, slow,  _slooooow_.

(it hurts)

Distinct voices and rustling, everyone wanting to touch some part of his body to keep him still, even though he cannot move. He wants to bite at them but the tube suddenly moves and water is being gushed down the tube in a steady stream. He feels the urge to swallow but the tube is so far down his throat that it is unnecessary. The water falls deep into his stomach, so cold he starts to feel himself quiver slightly despite being barely able to move. A blanket is draped over him and he can feel the weight but not the warmth.

He closes his teary eyes and waits for the wave to pass. Again. Again. Individual streams of water rush down and he feels the terrible feeling of fullness (need food) and he wants to gag (food) so he can throw up (more need more need-) everything that they managed to stuff into him.

After a while (eternity, timeless eternity, void-) the tube disappears. The tension seeps out, limb by limb, going from tight as a coil to limp weight. His head flops when the hands holding him steady disappear.

Some more voices. Distinct sighs of relief. They must think he is asleep and it works because ultimately they decide that feeding a sleeping patient has risks that far outweigh the benefits. He hears them scurry around somewhere nearby. The gag is removed too hastily and the sharp bit snags on his bottom lip and draws blood. A quiet curse and a cloth presses down hard on the cut. The pressure releases quickly but the sting remains.

Footsteps diminish.

He keeps his eyes closed, not wanting to know if he can or can't open them if he decides he wants to. His arm is bent at an awkward angle and he feels a crink forming in his neck. He wants to push his hair from his face that's starting to itch. He wants to ask for another blanket. He wants to move whenever he feels like moving. He wants a sleeping drought, not this paralyzing nightmare. He wants a damn fire stoked. He wants them all dead. He wants to fucking  _breathe_.

Somebody reads his mind because another blanket falls on top on him and his head is straightened, albeit roughly. He catches the distinct scent of salty vegetable soup. A reproachful sniff and the healer is gone.

His limbs ache. It going to be a long and uncomfortable night before he can move on his own again. He allows what remains of his hazy consciousness dream up imaginative ways of setting the Healing Hall ablaze.

 

 

 

*****

 

 

Eir, Thor, and Sif stand outside the Healing Room. A few hours have passed since Odin bade Thor good night and left towards the direction of his chambers, looking grim and quiet and more than a little lost.

Eir wrings her fingers together and begins.

"Loki sleeps most of the time. It is for the best. A person can only take so much before shutting down. It is not something he can control- eventually, a body shuts down on its own. Gives itself time to heal."

Thor exhales deeply. Sif shifts from side to side, frowning deeply. "And when will he wake?"

Eir glances back towards the Healing Hall. "He should be awake now… although not in the best mood for visitors." Eir frowns. "He still has problems with feeding himself. We were forced to help him."

Anger comes sharp and quick. "So you feed him as you would an animal?" Thor nearly shouts, voice echoing in the dim hall. Early morning. Odin should be up by now.

The brightness fades out of Eir's eyes and he remembers how much time she spent around Loki, the way she absolutely adored his antics as a boy, even though he tried her patience too many times to count, the way took up the role of stern aunt secretly admiring her tumultuous storm of a nephew, the way she watched him grow and ultimately watched him fall.

"I'm sorry," he says quickly. Sif reaches out a hand to squeeze tightly around his arm. Eir nods, too much understanding in that simple gesture.

"He will not eat or drink any other way." Eir looks at nothing. "Anything that might result in his own well-being, he shuns. It is the most astounding feat of self-destruction I have ever witnessed." Eir looks up at Thor, apologetic. "The closest case I have seen of his behavior is with the younger warriors- those most inexperienced. After returning from battle, they… have problems doing the most mundane tasks. They do not eat nor sleep. Sometimes they forget to shower. Forget to live normal lives because they are mentally caught in another. Time, usually, is the best treatment."

Eir pauses and sighs. "Although, I have never seen anything as severely deteriorative as Loki."

The three stay silent for a while, Eir waiting for questions, Sif with her hold on Thor, and Thor thinking about how some do battle while others just do tricks.

Young warriors who dreamt of bloodshed, still caught in battle after coming home. Scars so deep they halted sleep, halted time, halted life.

Loki, who was lying on a hospital bed, stuck somewhere Thor cannot reach.

"Thor?" Sif's voice is quiet but it manages to cut through the dim.

He blinks. Remembers time and place. Eir leans forward, expectant.

"Can I see him?" He asks, because what else can he do?

The Healer frowns. "He might not be in the best headspace." Her eyes shift away from his, thinking something he cannot hear. "You must be prepared that he will want nothing to do with you. Or others," she adds, looking to Sif.

Sif does nothing but wait with a steady hand on his arm. "Thor?" She asks again, quietly.

Thor sighs, again. A hint of the rising dawn makes it through the high windows and the world feels quiet.

"Alright," he says. He sighs again, bracing for the pain sure to come. "Alright."

 

 

*****

 

 

The smell of herbs and soap waft over his face before the light of the fire does. It burns softly, crackling gently in the corner of the magnificent hall. Loki, despite the obvious heat, is shivering violently.

_Loki_.

His little brother is lying on his back in a bed that looks too large for him, with bland clothes that look too big on him, with eyes too wide on his face, gaze too vacant, looking at nothing and managing to look terrified all at once. His eyes are glossed over, and the person who is supposed to live underneath the emerald green is vacant. Sharp, clever mind suppressed with medication and pain. Multiple pillows make him sit almost upright on the bed but his head is lolling back like he can't keep his head up on his own.

The tunic Thor brought from his room is folded neatly beside him and he cannot explain the hot rush of shame that he should have gotten him something better. His favorite book. His pendant that he's had since he was a boy, a gift from Frigga she laced with every protective enchantment she could manage to bestow upon it. (He doesn't know if Loki knows that. What he would say if he did.) Everything they packed for Loki waits for him back in chambers, until he is lucid enough to understand that he will stay in the Healing Hall for a while and they can begin to make things more comfortable for Loki. (Not even Thor believes that.)

Sif squeezes her hand tight around his bicep like a vice. Either her hand is so small or his arm is too big but her white fingers grip around barely half of him. It is the strongest her presence has ever felt beside him and he could live a thousand more years and never be able to form the words to let her know exactly how grateful he is that she's here.

_Loki_.

(So small. Thor told him this, occasionally, when they were younger.  _Why are you so small, brother? You look as thin as a branch!_  Joking, teasing, halfhearted jabs at pride- because they were brothers and what kind of brother would he be if he didn't say that sort of thing to his little brother? And Loki informed him in a voice befitting a grown adult that  _It's because of your bias. Your perception is all skewed because big brothers never see little brothers as anything other than little._  That if Thor was a stranger and Loki didn't know him and had never seen him before and neither one of them had absolutely nothing to connect one to the other, Thor would see how mistaken he was, how strong Loki was, how  _giant_  (and isn't that just ironic and heartbreaking and everything in between?) but he couldn't and can't,  _So there_ , Loki added. Like he'd just won some battle, some great big thing that Thor couldn't comprehend and would never comprehend.  _Idiot_ , sometimes followed the  _So there_.  _Brat_  sometimes followed the _Idiot_  and they would go on and on, spin circles and endless loops and regressions with their words like one long continuous thread of golden string of their conversations and jabs and pokes and prods until somewhere down the line, the thread got tangled, so irreparably tangled and knotted and confused that the words turned into barbs, the jokes into poison and teases into sharp-tongued duels and now the thread was too far knotted to see where the first knot began, where it was too late to unravel and take back and see where it had all gone  _so_   _wrong_ -)

"Loki."

Nothing.

"Loki?"

Nothing.

(Sif inhales quietly but it's so quiet he can hear her, even though she's trying not to be loud, and Thor cannot seem to be loud enough.)

" _Loki_?'

Nothing.

"Loki… Please _…_  talk to me."

(His eyes are closed.)

Thor clears his throat and blinks away moisture.

"Are you well?"

"Stupid question. Even for you."

Stupid, blind, numbing relief.

(hoarse voice, echo of a voice, his not-all there voice-)

"Oh gods. Oh gods. Oh gods."

(A scoff- or is it a sigh?)

Sif swallows.

"How are you feeling?"

"Marvelous. Absolutely. Peachy. However, my day did- take a- remarkable downturn all but- two minutes ago."

(Long pauses between sentences- breaks in-between words like he can't catch his breath or isn't breathing enough to begin with.)

(He can hear Sif inhale and exhale. Quiet. Steady. Sure.)

(He can't hear Loki breathe.)

(He watches the thin fabric of material of his chest move up and down. It's the only convincing factor.)

"Loki?"

"What."

(Command, not a question.)

(White knuckles fist the sheet as tight as Sif's hand on his arm.)

( _What can he say?_ )

(His voice is raspy, hoarse. It's hard for him to talk and why is that?-)

( _What is there for him to say?_ )

(His eyes are vacant yet manage to hold every range of emotion anyone ever must have felt, if such a spectrum even existed, one for angry and sad and pain and lost like color was red and blue and white and green-)

(Ten year old Loki would have loved to hear that, that expression)

( _What can he say?_ )

"Thor. What."

( _What is left for him to say?_ )

"Get better. Just please get better."

(Idiot. Fool. Moron-)

"Get. Out."

"Loki, please just listen to what he is trying to-"

"Why are- you here. With Thor it makes a- sick sort of sense but- not from-"

"We care about you, Loki. And we want to help-"

"Just get- out. Now. I want. You both out-"

"Loki-"

"What."

"Why did you jump?"

(Idiot. Fool. Moron-)

"Thor-"

"How could you do that again, Loki? Brother… please."

"What."

"Why?"

"Get- out."

"Please don't go away."

"Out."

"I'll come back. I'll do everything to make you stay. Please."

Nothing.

( _What can I say to make you stay?_ )

"I'm not going anywhere."

Nothing.

"Loki?"

"Thor."

Nothing.

(Gone. Dead. Void-)

" _Loki_!"

"Thor. We should go now."

The pincer-grip pulls.

"Come on, Thor. Let him rest. We will return later."

(He can't tell is she's talking to Loki or him.)

"Come on, Thor. There you go. We will come back, it's alright."

(Loki inhales shakily in sleep.)

"Shhh. Everything's alright."

(And exhales just as insubstantially.)

(He lets himself be pulled away and somehow manages to hate himself impossibly more.)

 

 

*****

 

 

Time has stopped working. All he knows is that Asgard is too bright, too large, and glowing. His feet walk without his bidding and only when he looks down in confusion to the spectrum running underneath his feet does he know where he is.

"Prince Thor," Heimdall says. His golden eyes cast down, regal helmet bowed in greeting.

"Heimdall," Thor manages. His mouth opens, grasps for words, for formalities, for  _Good mornings_ , but nothing comes out.

A pause.

"Midgard, I presume?" Heimdall quietly asks and says nothing else, face expressionless, and he does not ask after him or Loki or Odin or anyone or anything. The relief is so strong it aches.

Thor manages some sort of nod because Heimdall steps back into the Observatory to work as guide to the bridge between the Realms.

The Bifrost roars and flashes in its full glory, a surge of power and energy that fills Thor's head with the roar. He steps over the repaired crack in the glass beneath his feet and into the Observatory.

Heimdall bows. "Safe travels, my Prince."

A flash of a thousand colors and Asgard is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Don't be too mad at Thor, he's not abandoning Loki, he just needs to breathe. Understandably.
> 
> Stay tuned for Thor travels outside of Asgard.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor in London, wondering where they go next. Not a very happy chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost abandoned this story but decided I won't. I've had a really hard time lately, which is why the long delay. I'm sorry.  
> This is a very heavy Thor-centric chapter which is going to get a little bleak but things get worse before they get better, amirite???
> 
> I have tried to make it clear that the timeline is a little wonky because Thor is a little scatterbrained right now, so I have done my best to make it clear when Thor is remembering things (mostly italicized) but sometimes not. If there is any confusion, let me know.  
> This is the longest chapter to date, sort of my apology to keep you waiting so long. I was going to split it in two parts but you have all waited long enough. 
> 
> Warning: suicide ideation, extreme racism  
> Also, watch out for the throwback to the beginning of chapter 3. Witness is revealed.

_Thor goes to speak with Gamora, after the trial._

_He holds a strange fear of her, of the knowledge that shines in her eyes every time she looks at him. Every time she looks at Loki._

_“Will he be okay?” She asks him as he approaches._

_“I hope so,”, he says. “Thanks to you, there will be a chance.”_

_Gamora says nothing further, turning to watch the guards escort Loki after the Allfather. Loki breezes past them, does not acknowledge them- does not even look in their direction. But there is a fragility behind the mask that was not there before._

_The Einherjar escorting him do not carry the same amount of vehemence in their handling but rather, try to hide the look of bewilderment when they sneak glances towards each other, towards the prince between them. Their professionalism has given way in the face of astonishment._

_His brother looks as though he is planning every breath, every blink, every calculated step forward. He is very carefully not looking at anything of importance. It would have fooled Thor a year ago. Not so much now._

_Later, when she refuses his escort back to the Nova Corps, she turns to him to say one more thing._

_“Thor… What I said… I just wanted to tell you.”_

_Her eyes glint strangely and Thor’s heart skips a little in his chest, getting the feeling that he is missing something important._

_“I was not there for all of it. I do not know all of what happened to him.”_

_She swallows hard._

_“But I can tell you this. I lost my sister because I was convinced she would leave with me. I was sure that she would want to find a better life, that she would want more for herself. But she did not and I failed to see that. I lost her.”_

_She looks up at him with all the urgency in the world._

_“Don’t let him fool you.”_

_With one more bracing squeeze of his shoulder, she turns to leave. She walks tall among the Aesir, even though she’s so obviously out of place. The people who are not gawking at Loki are gawking at her._

_She never once looks back but Thor catches Loki moving. It is fast but there- he turns his head and gives Gamora one fleeting glance before he turns away again, his face impassive and unaffected._

_But Thor catches it before it disappears- the look on his face was gratitude._

 

* * *

 

 

( _Do you remember?)_

 

He leans back on the bench, looks up at all the green above him. The leaves intervene like fingers interlocked, gaping to let some sun peek through. It’s a vivid green, just a shade or two off from the color of Loki’s eyes.

 

( _Running through meadow, back when we were too young to understand all of this dark in this universe?)_

_(Do you remember your hand in mine?)_

_(You used to trust me so completely.)_

The day is so beautiful. The air is clear and the sun just manages to break through the dim of the afternoon London smog. Each breath makes his head clearer, allows his thoughts to stretch out, less loud and less cluttered. He breathes in pure air and with every sight he takes in, all those birds and green and light overhead, he can spy some of the stars managing to shine through the early morning light. And somewhere up there, his brother.

 

_(I wish you were right here next to me.)_

Thor has never quite mastered the art of happiness without guilt. This feeling is something he has had to learn those first months in his life when, for the first time, the fact was that he would never see his brother again.

And those dark months are blurred to him now, some phantom pain that his mind instinctively shies away from.  But still, he can remember where this habit came from, the one that still has not left him, the one where he talks to his brother as if he could turn his head and there he would be, sitting right beside him.

And even knowing that Loki is alive and waiting somewhere far away from him does nothing to teach him how to return to how it was before. He cannot remember how to taste happiness without the bitter aftertaste of loss, the pounding certainty of every beat of his heart that with every second of happiness he steals, Loki would somehow never get. He cannot turn off the endless dialogue of his mind- this empty one-way conversation.

 

_(You absolute cowardly ass. You ran, that is what you did. You abandoned him.)_

Was it rational? No. But it felt true. This guilt feels truer than anything he can ever proclaim to know.

 

_(Again.)_

But now? Right this second? He can breathe a little, light years away from home, away from Loki. Here, he can try to remember the taste of happiness.

It’s absolutely fleeting but necessary to remember. It is literally life and death.

He needs to teach it better, if his mother cannot, if his father won’t. He needs to.

If Loki were here, sitting beside him, what would he say? What would he ask?

 

( _Do you remember when we were children?)_

_(I think you were happy then.)_

_(Tell me, what did I miss? What did I not see?)_

 

_(How could I be so blind?)_

_(How could you_ let _me be so blind?)_

 

And Thor has never been a wordsmith, not like Loki. But if he could, if he could say exactly what this yawning pit inside of him was and he could somehow pull Loki inside of it and make Loki be Thor, if he could somehow make him see what he sees and feel what he feels and share the same soul for eight seconds— _eight_ _seconds_ of a chance for him to say—

 

_(one)_

_(see? Do you see just how much I have missed you?)_

 

_(two)_

_(I begged to the Norns after you fell for one more minute with you— for one more, just one and I would have laid waste to the Heavens and brought them to ruin—)_

 

_(three)_

_(for one more. Just one more minute with you.)_

 

_(four)_

_(When I heard you lived, I wept. I raged and stormed and screamed and wept because I was waiting to wake up like I did a thousand dreams before.)_

 

_(five)_

_(Look at the sky. The sun. The air. The stars. Look at me.)_

 

_(six)_

_(Why are you afraid to live? Why are you_ so _afraid to live?)_

 

_(seven)_

_(I wanted you back. I wanted you back so much—)_

 

_(eight)_

_(but not like this.)_

 

Loki bleeding. Loki with sunken eyes and shaking hands. Loki looking up at the sky and choosing to jump.

Loki unsmiling. Loki starved and scarred and angry and so afraid. Always so _afraid_ and trying so damn hard to pretend he is not.

 

Loki vanishing, bit by bit, a little more each day.

 

 _(never like this_ )

 

* * *

 

 

( _shame_ )

 

It was because Asgard did not know better.

Men fought battles, slayed monsters- returned home to feasts with ale and drink, regaled with stories of honor and bravery and went on, slept in their own beds with no further thought, no nightmares. Battle shock was for the young and inexperienced, something to be shamed, whispered quietly about only in shadowed healing halls. It was clear cut, simple and true. Asgard was the home of the honorable and brave.

They are all trained not to see it any other way.

 

_He was little more than adolescent when he killed his first man. He had not called it a man then._

_It was the first time a war with Jotunheim had been possible since the Great War of Odin’s time. A small renegade of the Jotnar had broken off into the backlands of their frozen wastelands, terrorizing the small villages housed there. It happened occasionally, when the more desperate of the creatures would break off from the main to form small pockets of ravagers, who would pilfer the less fortunate for food and shelter._

_It was no hidden fact among the Aesir that Jotunheim was dying. The taking of their prized Casket had withered the land, fractured an already divided people. Resources were scarce. Sickness ravaging its people. Desperate throngs of Jotnar radicalized and broke off from the main, causing unrest and rioting among those less fortunate in their race. They pilfered and slaughtered, taking what was so desperately needed._

_Asgard was the protector of all. Unrest in any of the Nine, even towards the detested creatures, was a responsibility that fell to Asgard- a burden that the Aesir resented heavily._

_It was a game among the Aesir. It was his first kill._

_Thor was nearing manhood, eager and reckless, desperate to prove himself. The task of seeing to Jotnar ravagers was a notoriously dreaded one— the land was merciless, barren of most feed and shelter. It was a mystery to Thor how any could survive there._

_But survive there many did. He remembers the villagers he and a small group of Aesir were tasked to protect. And it was a joke, the mere idea, of the monsters needing protection from other monsters. He remembers the jaunting taunts and jeers the Aesir threw at the huddled masses, trying to look small despite their size._

_The severe color of their skins and their markings made it difficult for Thor to tell what they were thinking or feeling— and if he is honest, he never would have called them capable of such back then. Such capabilities were reserved for higher beings. He can recall the sound of his own voice raising insult after insult, joined by those he called his friends. He was high on it, drunk on the absolute truth of his own superiority. He would rule these pitiful creatures one day, they would taste the dirt he walked so highly upon, they would bow and revel in his greatness, and one day he would slay each one where they stood, send them sprawling on the dirt that was their only rightful place._

(he tastes such great shame now)

_The Jotnar did nothing. Terror and destitution had taught them submission. They bowed their heads, curved their spines, bit their tongues. They had shame beaten into their people until it had been taught to their children, passed down to generations to preserve what little they had left. Asgard had crippled them— had forbidden trade between the realms, had destroyed their magnificent temples and warships, laid waste to their crops, stolen the very lifeblood of their realm. They were isolated and waiting to die off._

_He was drunk on it._

_But in the haze, something occurred to him, something not thought about until decades later, when he was standing on the edge of a shattered Bifrost._

_It was strange to him that not all the Jotnar were towering over him. Not all were giant._

_“It is because of their malnourishment, my liege. The entire population is slowly starving and it is more advantageous to the whole that their young are born smaller,” said Bothe, noticing the confounded look on Thor’s face at the sight of a small Jotun girl, clutching the leg of her much more massive father._

_Bothe was the scribe who was tasked with documenting their conquest of the land. He was quiet and meeker than the rest of the hardy warriors. Thor recognized him through Loki- the scribe was sometimes tasked with fetching Loki supplies or books from the library, when his brother was either too immersed in his studies to be interrupted or simply did not want to make the journey himself._

_“It is common for the Jotnar at times of great resource depletion, such as periods of war or famine, to have young  that are born smaller, therefore requiring less resources to thrive in an unforgiving environment,” Bothe continued. “It is advantageous to the whole, considering that more could flourish with less.”_

_Thor scoffed. “A useless endeavor. Will they not admit defeat when it is known to them?”_

_Bothe looked at Thor, a strange look on his face. Thor bristled- the look was not exactly bordering on disrespect but rather, gave Thor the feeling that he was being talked down to, that there was something he did not quite understand but someone else did and he was too simple to bother having it explained to him. It was a look that frequented Loki’s face quite often._

_But when Bothe spoke again, his voice was anything but disrespectful. “Well, my liege, despite this instance of environmental adaptation, the estimates of Aesir’s best scholars declare that the Jotnar will all perish in another millennium.”_

_Thor laughed then, done with the conversation. “If I wanted a history lesson, scribe, I would ask my brother.”_

_Bothe bowed his head respectfully and fell silent._

_*_

Sooner than a millennium _, Thor thought._ When I am king.

_(I will slay them all)_

_*_

_The boy he killed- he cannot call him a man, he was too small to be called a man- was as small as Bothe had described._

_The Jotnar ravagers fought ruthlessly, growing almost vicious in their hunger and desperation. And Thor remembers, so clearly, the difference in his battle lust and theirs. The Aesir laughed and jeered with every Jotnar they stroke down. The Jotnar, when their impending defeat became more and more obvious, began to retreat back into the tundra, making the jeers and taunts grow louder._

_None were spared. All were slaughtered._

_The boy was one of the last who remained fighting. He was still taller than Thor and many of his comrades, but the boy was smaller than his own kin. He was so small that his arms shook as he held the mace that Thor knocked out of his hands._

_And in the haze of Thor’s bloodlust, he still noticed the boy’s eyes, the ones he was so disgusted by- widen in surprise at the death blow._

_Thor was young- he did not yet have Mjolnir but it did not make him any less formidable, any less barbaric in his strike. The boy fell and stained the white snow, with blood that was blacker than Aesir blood._

_And it was only then that Thor saw exactly how young the boy was. The dark hair was plaited in tight rings away from his face, the markings looped around childish, round cheeks. His arms and legs were too thin for his height, and his stomach was swollen. He was very obviously, like many of the dead Jotnar scattered around them, starving to death._

_The boy’s eyes were still open, still wide but now, unseeing. He was younger than even Loki._

_At the sound of his comrades’ voices, roaring at his victory, the proof of their crown prince’s majesty- he felt the twinge inside his chest. For the first time, he had looked down at the chaos and gore he had wrought and did not feel pride._

_(Shame.)_

_It grew smaller and easier to ignore the more he was lauded by the older and seasoned warriors around him, some aged enough to have been young men during the Great War._

_It was smaller and easier to ignore the further they walked away, towards home, their blood-work done, more and more away from the scene playing out behind them, the Jotnar villagers, quiet and resigned in their defeat, moving to care after the bodies of their dead._

_It was smaller and easier to ignore when he finally tore his eyes away from the boy’s body, his limbs rigid and stiff in the cold, handled by the Jotnar villagers who just moments ago, had been fending them away from their crops, away from what little they had._

_And it was smaller and easier to ignore when he returned to the golden palace and it was certainly smaller and easier to ignore when that night, surrounded by his friends and his comrades, his family and his King, was handed the great war-hammer Mjolnir for his great deeds and service. Bravery and victory in the battlefield. True sacrifice and honor._

_Who had the boy been? Was he afraid when he saw the golden helms shine in the distance across the snow? Did he have a family or was he all alone?  What amount of desperation must he have felt, to resort to thievery against his own kind? He was desperate. Thor had seen his ribs stretch against the blue skin, right when he fell backwards into the snow. What was he thinking, in that final moment, when his gaze turned to Thor’s and his eyes had widened? What did he see there? Brutality? Savagery? A killer?_

_A monster?_

_*_

_The boy did not leave his nightmares for weeks to come. This shame was harder to forget in the dark of night. And after days of sleeplessness, after weeks of his mind turning, the shame becoming more and more unbearable, where else would he think to go other than the soothing familiarity of his brother’s chambers?_

_They had not done so since they were small children, but that night, Thor had crawled into the warmth of his brother’s bed, who was fast asleep, curled up on his side the way he had always slept since he had been a young child._

_Shame had no room to grow there. And he slept soundly for the first time in weeks._

_In the morning, when Loki asked why in all the wretched Nine was Thor was drooling on his bed sheets, something in him broke and he finally confessed to everything- the death blow, the blood, the young dead face that would not leave him, the unbearable shame. Loki listened, quietly and without comment, until he was finished, wrung out and drained, no energy for another word._

I am ashamed _, Thor remembers saying,_ for killing a Jotun.

_The words hung in the air, finally spoken aloud. And Thor remembers when the weight of them grew heavier and heavier in the air between him, the words ringing in their ears until finally, the tension became unbearable and broke when Loki suddenly collapsed forward into himself, and it took him a while to realize he was laughing, overcome with hilarity of what Thor had just said._

I am ashamed for killing a Jotun _, Thor said again for good measure, and his own laughter exploded out of his mouth, even louder than Loki’s and he remembers such sweet_ relief _. It was hilarious, it was_ funny _, that such a statement could even be said, and he remembers, with tears of laughter in his eyes, the shame dissipating into almost nothing. It was funny it was even there to begin with._

Don’t be _, Loki had said, after their laughter had died down._ They all deserve to die.

* * *

_The shame returns with a vengeance, when he’s standing on the edge of a broken Bifrost, holding nothing in his hands, numb with shock._

(eight seconds)

 

_He thinks of small Jotnar, vacant red eyes, stained snow. He wonders at the possibility of it, the circumstance of it- it could have been Loki he had struck down all those years ago- Loki fighting and starved and desperate. Loki looking up at him from bloodstained snow, eyes widening at the sight of a pale-skinned monster._

_But this wasn’t that alternate reality. This was now. This was a universe where he had lived with Loki, grew up with him, played with him, and loved him._

_Loki had green eyes and pale skin. He was his little brother who was exasperatingly smart and unimaginably cunning. Loki liked to sleep in until midday and he hated apple jam and loved the smell of the lavender that grew in Mother’s garden._

_This was that world, and Thor had failed anyway._

_The phantom shame returned to him with a vengeance, curled around inside his ribs and made its home there. It pounds along with every beat of his heart, as if to remind him-_

(I am ashamed for killing a Jotun.)

 

* * *

 

Jane is kind and smart, so smart, and she does not ask questions.

When he somehow finds his way back to her small apartment flat, it is already twilight. He stands, dripping unto her carpet (it has somehow, inexplicitly, started to rain), and she walk up to him, grabs his arm with her small hand, and leads him into his room.

He dimly kicks off his muddy shoes, and she strips off her jacket.

He collapses on his bed and she tucks a blanket around him, like he’s a child suffering with nothing more than a cold.

“I’m so sorry, Thor.”

A hot tear manages to escape his eye.

“I am a coward, Jane. I am afraid to go home,” he whispers.

Jane grasps one of his shoulders tightly.

“Listen to me, Thor- it’s okay to feel that way. Just stay as long as you need, alright?”

He manages a nod and with another grasp of his shoulder, she leaves.

He breathes heavily and looks out of the window. The light outside is a dim, muted blue and he counts the raindrops racing down, down, down.  Everything falls.

He wants Loki to live but he is having trouble remembering exactly what that feels like. And he is supposed to return home, stand in front of Loki a charlatan, a liar, a hypocrite- and say with all the promise of the world that _things get better_?

He would be ousted in a second. His brother, the liar himself, who was always so strangely proficient in truth.

He needs a better reason than _it might get better_. He needs something solid and concrete that Loki can stand on but in truth, he is at a loss. He can’t even remember how to smile without the lurking guilt punching his gut.

He remembers how he thought, with all the naivete of a child, that Loki was alive and the meant that he would come home and they would finally go back and be the people they used to be.

They could be happy again.

But Loki was never really happy, was he?

 

(imagined slights)

 

He wants to shut his brain off, stop the same cycling thoughts that never reach any logical, final conclusion than _your fault, your fault, your fault, it’s all your fault._

He needs better reasons. He needs a better mind and better words. He needs to convince Loki of something he is having a hard time believing himself.

He remembers Gamora’s horrible words, that night the universe changed for him forever, when the stars lost something vital and essential in their light. That night when he realized that he did not understand anything at all about the universe.

 

_“I told him to kill himself. Before everything. I do not even know if he tried but either way, it was too late. My father… I mean— he is not my father.”_

_“I understand.”_

_Her eyes turned glassy, somewhere far away. “But see, the thing is, you really don’t.”_

He doesn’t know exactly what it is that he lost but he knows he needs to get it back.

 

(And things will get better?)

 

(you know better, you damned hypocrite)

 

_Oh Lo, we’re in trouble here, aren’t we?_

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes he walked.

In those dark months, he would walk everywhere.

He would walk the halls down to Loki’s chambers, where he was so careful not to move anything, not even the chair that was always unspokenly _his chair,_ because he spent so much time in here that Loki eventually gave up, exasperated, and let Thor claim that small space inside his room.

He would walk down to the libraries and run his fingers over the spines of the books and every once in a while, he would see one that he convinced himself looked familiar and he would pull it from the shelves and start to read it.

(It was a lie, of course, he didn’t know what Loki read, what kind of books he liked and it seemed so great an oversight it should be a sin- he knew Loki loved to read, that was an absolute _fact_ , but for the life of him he could not list his favorite, he could not even tell which books Loki had read and which he had not, it should be a _sin_ , not knowing this vital piece of information-)

He would stare at the words for hours, until nothing looked like words anymore. He would stare at the gibberish until the sun came up and Sif or Fandral or Volstagg or Hogun or Mother would come and find him and softly say, in the careful way one speaks to a broken man-

 

_Thor, enough. You cannot keep doing this._

And the worst _._

_This will not bring him back._

 

 **_And yes_ ** _, he wanted to yell at them, at the sky, to the Heavens, to whatever power up there decided to let his little brother end his own life **, yes, yes, I know that, but tell me what**_ **will _, tell me what_ will _bring him back- tell me what can make me turn back time and do it right this time._**

 

Sometimes he would sit for hours and no one would come.

Just sit and read nothing for hours, book after book. Nothing had any answers, no secrets, or riddles. None of Loki’s writing scribbled on the margins, no slight clue that Loki had ever existed in this library, no secret message Loki left for him to find and read. No more clues, no more tricks. Nothing.

 

**_Tell me._ **

 

And in those first dark, terrible months, half an idea began to form.

****

* * *

 

 

Sometimes he walked and sometimes he would end up on the Bifrost. 

It was still broken and would remain that way for a long while. Thor both dreaded and longed for the day it was repaired. He longed for it because maybe it would be easier to look at it, to not feel his heart gutted out of his chest every time he looked outside.

He dreaded it because then people wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. They would move on, a chapter closed and finished and Thor was certain, down to the lining of his bones, that he would never move on. He would grow old, mad with grief and mourning a brother long forgotten. His mother would die, his father would die. Who else would mourn but him? Loki had no true friends, he realized that, the same way he realized everything else- too late.

He dreads it for the first time in his long existence. Growing old.

And then it occurs to him, the very moment that thought enters his brain. Months in the making- that forbidden, irrational, _beautiful_ thought completes itself.

For the first time in months, he feels something other than the dark. He feels hope, he is giddy with it and breathless with its perfection. It will absolutely work. He tells no one else because he _knows_ \- they will not understand.

But he does. And it will work- _it will work_.

He walks to the Bifrost for the last time when he is certain that Heimdall will not be there.

 

* * *

 

 

_I will jump and I will be with Loki again._

 

* * *

 

When he stepped out into the open air, he was surprised to find he could not move.

He looked down and saw why.  His father’s arms were clutched like a vice around him.

“No, Thor. No, no, no, no, _no_ ….”

His father had not cried. In months, he had not done so much as gaze expressionlessly through whoever spoke to him. During Loki’s funeral rites, he had stared without seeing as they burned what little of Loki's things had passed his Mother’s approval. He had not grieved, had not spoken, had not wept.

Now, he held Thor against his chest, who was limp like a broken toy. His magnificent plan shattered into a million pieces inside his head, each pang of his heart driving it further home. The unspoken truth he had not allowed himself to say.

 

_My brother is dead and he is never coming back._

He was too stunned to cry, and could only remain limp as his father rocked him back and forth, like he was a little boy again, still young enough to be held by his father without the slightest embarrassment.

His father wept openly, like a child, his legs giving out and lowering Thor, with him, down to the floor.

His father’s hands were clutched over his chest, where Thor was certain his heart would beat out of his chest if his hands were not there to keep it in place. Thor put his hands over his, trying to offer what little comfort he could give his father as he went through in seconds what took him months to feel.

His father wept, and wept, and wept.

 

_My brother is dead and he will never know how sorry I am._

He would not try again, he knew this. Because if the death of one child almost killed his parents, the death of two certainly would.

 

“No, no. No, no, no, **_no_** …”

His father’s cries were swallowed by the Void.

Full of brokenness, uselessness, and shame.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be much less Thor and more Loki. 
> 
> I wanted to give emphasis in this chapter into how much losing Loki must have affected Thor. They have lived side by side for a millennium and I feel like Thor suddenly losing that type of immense love and relationship from his brother has been downplayed heavily in the movies.  
> I feel like losing a person like Loki is to Thor is enough to make anyone contemplate the worth of living at all. I say this because I feel like some people might raise eyebrows at suicide ideation from Thor, but I find it extremely likely, even if it's on a much lower scale than Loki. Asgardians live for a long time- that's a long time for Thor to contemplate living without Loki. I also feel like Thor is not always fair to himself and places a lot of blame on his shoulders that is not entirely his. 
> 
> Also it's my personal headcannon that Thor affectionately referred to Loki as Lo when he was a child who was learning to speak and it stuck. It's also my headcannon that Loki is absolutely irritated by this because damn it, he is not a child anymore and Loki is already a pretty short name, so now it only comes out when Thor is feeling particularly affectionate and he can get away with it.
> 
> Also another tidbit: Bothe means "wise" in some translations of Norse. He is obviously very aware of Asgard's hypocrisy in regards to the Jotnar. 
> 
> Thank you to those who leave kudos and comments- those who respectfully encouraged me to keep updating are the reason this story will be continued. Thank you

**Author's Note:**

> Please review and let me know what you think!


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